The Valley of the Dead
by LadyElaine
Summary: How did the heroic Mathayus become the fearsome and terrible Scorpion King? There's no category for The Scorpion King, so I've put it here.
1. The New King

Title: The Valley of the Dead

Author: LadyElaine

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of _The Scorpion King_ belong to Universal Films, Stephen Sommers, and Chuck Russell.

Rating: PG-13

Summary: How did heroic Mathayus become the fearsome and terrible Scorpion King?

****

The Valley of the Dead 

****

I. The New King 

The first sun of the house of Scorpio rose clear and cool. Mathayus, the new king, and Cassandra, his sorceress and consort, stood outside the city walls to bid farewell to the great Nubian warrior-king Balthazar. Banners and pendants flapped gaily from the standards of both kings' honor guards; the gates of Gomorrah had been flung open in celebration.

"Live free," Mathayus said, a smile coming to his face as easily as the words of the ancient Akkadian salute.

Balthazar had bidden Mathayus to never forget who he was, or the people he'd come from; now he replied, "Rule well." 

Cassandra's smile wavered. The proper response was _Die well_, as the Nubian no doubt knew from his long feuds with the near-extinct Akkadian assassin tribe--but he did know, she realized, as she saw Balthazar's grin harden.

To rule was to die.

A heartbeat later, she had seen it. Her breath faltering, she moistened her lips, then regained her poise. The warrior king had ridden off, and Mathayus stood gazing at her expectantly. 

Ah, yes. He was king, and she, his sorceress. She must play her role, as surely as he. 

"I see a time of great peace and prosperity," she lied.

Mathayus frowned. "How is it you see this? Don't the legends say you'll lose your powers if you...." He trailed off with a suggestive smirk.

"Can you think of a better way of keeping a king from taking advantage?" she said smoothly. "Well, neither could my ancestors."

The king's smugness evaporated. "And how long will this time of peace last?"

__

Already, he has taken on the burden--and the pride--of kingship. Cassandra fought to keep the vision from overwhelming her again. "Nothing lasts forever, my king." And then the vision was reflected in Mathayus' eyes, the shadow of a scorpion as it was devoured by a jackal. "And that," said the sorceress, "is the destiny of all kingdoms."

The jackal-headed god of the dead stared through the Scorpion King's eyes at Cassandra. "Then we'll make our own destiny."

***

Arpid demonstrated his juggling skills at the celebratory banquet, to the delight of the women and children. But the red guards there, Mathayus noted, were less than thrilled. They grimaced at the horse thief and watched their new king out of the corner of their eyes. They murmured amongst themselves and never looked directly at the sorceress. More than once, Mathayus' sharp ears caught the name of Memnon.

__

But I _am their king now_, he said to himself. When Arpid came back to sit beside him with a tired thump, grinning from ear to ear, Mathayus pronounced his first act as king: pardoning a horse thief.

Cassandra smiled, and just for a moment, the king forgot all about his kingdom.

"...And so I told them," Arpid was saying to a lovely lady at his side, "I said, 'I am a high priest of Set! If you do not free me, I will curse you in five hundred different languages!'"

Mathayus chuckled and decided not to correct his friend's memory. Instead, he leaned over and muttered, "High priest of Set? I thought you were a horse thief."

"Aha!" Arpid laughed, "but the two are not mutually exclusive, you understand. What better way for a servant of the god of treachery and deceit to... make a little on the side?"

__

Treachery and deceit.... Mathayus glanced at the red guards. "Arpid, I have a job for you."


	2. In the Valley of the Dead

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II. **In the Valley of the Dead**

"I will build a city in the Valley of the Dead."

Cassandra was stretched out beside Mathayus, her left arm and leg draped over his body. One finger traced idle patterns over the skin of his chest. "Why?" A single candle still flickered low beside them, but the narrow window showed the first yellow stain of sunrise. 

"It's my home... it was my home." Mathayus turned his gaze toward Cassandra, and a gentle smile ghosted across his face. "I can't forget who I am. Balthazar was right. I can't forget where I came from." He caught her wandering finger, bringing her hand up to his mouth to kiss it.

"And who will build this city for you in the Valley of the Dead?" Raising herself up, Cassandra slid her body atop Mathayus'. "And who will live in this city in the Valley of the Dead?"

Her hair brushed over his lips. He buried his hands in it, stroking through the dark, sleek strands. "My people will build it. And more than just my people..." His words were lost for a long moment in her mouth, in her taste and scent. Then he pulled away. 

"Everyone who comes, I'll give them land, and homes, and they'll work for me while the Nile is flooded, and farm the richness the sacred river leaves behind."

Cassandra kissed him again, nipping his lower lip playfully. His hands found her throat, then her breasts, then gripped her waist. Her lips explored his jaw line, then worked their way down to his chest. "But there isn't enough land in your kingdom for all the people who would come to such a promise."

A moment later, Mathayus had rolled over, trapping Cassandra beneath him. His own long hair, freed from its ties for sleep he hadn't gotten, spilled onto her face. Sputtering and giggling, she tried to brush it away, but Mathayus pinned her wrists down. Teeth grazed over her earlobe, then down her neck. 

The king shrugged his hair back over his shoulders and grinned. "Then I will need more land."

***

He'd never had the chance to say goodbye to his brother, not with his days being occupied almost solely with survival.

Now Mathayus shadowed a small pit he'd dug in the sandy ground of the Valley of the Dead. In his hands he held a dagger--his own dagger, the one Memnon had killed Jesup with. _Perhaps_, Mathayus thought, _he meant to give Jesup a shameful death._ But for an Akkadian, there was no greater honor than to die by one's brother's blade. _No wonder there were so few of us._

His fingers flipped the blade over and over compulsively. Jesup's body had been burned. This dagger was all the king had left of his brother. Dried blood still lined the center seam of the short blade, coating the join at the hilt as well. Finally, he knelt down, setting the dagger gently into the makeshift grave, and swept the sand back over it. 

"The Egyptians say that if the body is destroyed, the soul decays as well," he said aloud, one hand still resting on the sand. "But you were an Akkadian, my brother. We have both seen the spirits of our ancestors walking this land. And so I will give you, and all the spirits here, a home. A city. A city of the dead, in the Valley of the Dead." He rose to his feet. "You will never be forgotten."

Over the grave, Mathayus erected a rocky cairn. To the east, he raised a standing stone with his own hands. Then he turned to the west, where a horde of people lined the horizon, waiting.

His sorceress approached him. "They have come for you."

"They have come to build for me."

Cassandra's lips tilted upwards. "No, they have come because of your promise. Because you are a king they can love."

Mathayus turned to her with his brother's grave in his eyes. "And you, my sorceress? Am I a king you can love?"

"It is the man that I love, my lord. Not the king."

***

The courtyard wall made a perfect perch for the small ex-thief. Below, a handful of red guards stood in a knot in one corner, out of reach of the flickering torchlight.

Arpid caught "Captain" and "treason," and, carried up on a sudden gust, "The Scorpion King must die."


	3. The King on High

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III. The King on High 

The stone floor held the same chill as the night itself, but the only movement was a forked tongue flicking out to taste the air. 

She was a hunter of rats and a killer of men, and her patience was as cold as her blood. She tested the air again and felt the subtle vibrations of approaching footsteps. The door to the king's bedchamber opened soundlessly, and five shadows slipped inside.

Hood flaring, she reared up behind the would-be assassins, blocking their only exit. Tonight, she was more than a mere cobra; she was a protector of kings.

The dance of steel and scales that followed was quick, but not deadly. 

Cassandra smiled through the darkness as her cobra subdued the intruders, dodging short swords and booted feet with equal alacrity, fangs snapping only inches away from fragile human flesh. Terrified, the men finally threw their weapons down.

The unmistakable sound of a sword leaving its sheath rang through the room, and a torch guttered to life.

"You have them?" Mathayus asked from beside the wall sconce. Neither he nor his sorceress had been asleep--instead, a pair of bolsters lay on the bed in their place, while the king and his consort waited in the shadowed corners.

The sorceress had foreseen the midnight attack, and the sacred guardian had come to her call. "My pet knows her business, my lord. She will not strike unless the traitors move."

The king glared at the intruders, all of whom wore the crimson trappings of the red guard. "Damned shame."

***

The entire court had been woken in the middle of the night, from the youngest pages to the captain of the palace guard. The five assassins were held, manacled, by men loyal to the new king.

Seated on the throne, Mathayus asked, "What does the law declare the penalty for treason to be?" 

The king's sorceress answered him in a velvet voice. "Traitors are to be disemboweled alongside their wives and children, their heads displayed on pikes at the city walls."

Mathayus rose slowly, drawing his scimitar. He made his way down the steps to stand at Cassandra's side. "That is the old law. _My_ law is kinder." At his nod, the guards pushed the traitors to their knees as the king came to stand before them. "Your families will be kept safe."

Five times, the sword rose, and five times it fell. When the king's justice was carried out, he passed the bloodied weapon to his captain, who cleaned it on one of the headless bodies' scarlet wraps before handing it back with a bow.

The throne room door thundered open.

Two armored guards entered, dragging a young man, cursing and spitting, into the king's presence. The boy couldn't be more than a few years older than the urchin who'd helped Mathayus take the throne, but it was to his credit that both guards wore black eyes, and at least one of the pair's noses looked broken.

"We found _this_ lurking by your bedchamber, my lord." They shoved the boy in front of them.

The youth tried to stand, slipped on the bloody floor, then regained his footing. He stared at Mathayus with pure hatred in his eyes. "Give me a sword!" he demanded.

"Why?" the king asked.

"It is my right! You slew my brother, Akkadian. It is my right, by the law, to avenge him!"

"Who are you, boy?"

"I am Thomid. My brother was Thorak, once captain of the red guard. Trusted friend of Memnon, the _true_ king of Gomorrah!"

Mathayus strode back to Cassandra. "Recite the prophecy, Sorceress." 

She was pale, and she seemed to have shrunk in on herself. Her wide eyes couldn't seem to tear away from the corpses or the blood. "...My lord?"

"Recite!" he roared.

She blinked rapidly, as though driving away a terrible sight. Then, slowly, she began:

__

By tolling bell and thunder swell,

a flaming star falls from the sky.

By full moon's glow in house of Scorpio,

kneeling men bow to the king on high. 

When she was done, the color had come back to her face, but her hands still shook.

"_I_ am the true king." Mathayus' voice was low, but somehow carried throughout the entire, vast throne room. "The gods themselves have decreed it. The blood of the scorpion runs through my veins."

Thomid spat at his feet. "The scorpion is a bug that cannot decide whether to be a spider or a crab. Which are you, Scorpion King?"

The king nodded to the guard captain. The grizzled old warrior stepped forward and tossed his own sword to the young man. Thomid hefted the weapon, testing its balance and swing, and eyed Mathayus with anticipation.

"No..." It was just a whisper, but it, too, echoed around the chamber. Cassandra's eyes were focused far away.

"Sorceress?" Mathayus murmured. "What do you see?"

"I see blood," she replied. "The waters have all turned to blood. The sky is weeping crimson tears."

The king shook his head, frowning in confusion, but Cassandra fled from the throne room, from the blood and bodies, from the king's justice.


	4. Blood of the Scorpion

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IV. Blood of the Scorpion 

Cassandra found Philos in his old chambers, looking over his inventions like a father watching his sleeping children. When she entered, he turned with a smile and held out his hands. As usual, he was a mess, as if he'd slept in his clothes and not bothered with such mundane things as grooming. 

She ran into his embrace. "What's happening to him, Philos?" She buried her face in his shoulder, hiding her tears. "He once told me that he made his own destiny--but now he's pinning his kingship on a prophecy? Nothing good will come of this." She gasped as the vision overcame her again. "Blood--the Nile itself has turned to blood!"

"Oh, my dear Cassandra. It has always been your gift to see the worst possible outcomes for those you care the most about." 

"It's not a gift, it's a curse!" she protested. 

The old man stroked her hair, patting her fondly and rocking her. Then, absurdly, he chuckled. "It could be worse, you know. What if no one took you seriously?"

The sorceress looked up at her old friend and gave a hesitant laugh. "Then we would never have come this far, would we?"

Philos' eyes twinkled. "No, we'd have both been getting a little too close to the executioner for comfort." He winked and said, "Now come, let me show you my latest--"

The distinctive clash of blade on blade, muffled by layers of stone, interrupted him. Somewhere below them in the palace, someone was fighting for his life.

The sorceress gave her old friend a desperate look. "Oh, no..."

***

Thomid had charged him, sword held high like a banner, and Mathayus could have taken him, the way the boy left himself open, but he'd knocked Thomid's blade to one side instead, shoving him back with a shoulder lunge and circling around to try and pin the boy into the corner. He was king, after all, not a killer of children.

Shifting his grip low, Thomid came at Mathayus again. The king parried to his right. He backed away a second time, but now he didn't bother waiting for the boy's next attack. 

One swift skip-step brought him within striking reach. Thomid gave a wordless cry of challenge. But Mathayus was undaunted by the boy's senseless anger. He used his height advantage to bring his scimitar sweeping down. Blocking high, Thomid bent under the force of the king's blow and somersaulted back towards the corner. A furious kick to the king's solar plexus. Mathayus found himself stumbling back onto the blood-slick floor behind him and went down hard.

His vision swimming with sparks, the king struck out blindly--and felt his blade connect with something other than steel.

He scrambled to his feet, gasping and shaking the stars from his head. He was covered in blood, but none of it was his own. It was the blood of the traitors he'd executed. The blood of the boy sprawled on the floor, still kicking. The king's blind strike had caught Thomid in the midsection, nearly bisecting the boy.

Thomid stared up at him, eyes gaping in shock and pain. His fingers clutched at the stone floor involuntarily. "I will... I will curse your name to... to the gods... Scorpion King." 

The reflexive kicking finally stopped.

Mathayus wanted to sit down. He wanted to ride out to the valley of his ancestors and bury himself in the burning sand. He wanted to kill something; but he'd done enough of that to last a lifetime.

"My lord?" the guard captain asked, his grizzled expression as unfazed as ever. 

Mathayus gestured with a bloody hand at the corpses, scattering crimson droplets over half the floor. "Burn the traitors' bodies. Give the boy... Give the boy an honorable burial." 

__

I am a king, not a killer of children. But some part of his mind whispered back, _To rule is to kill._

***

Balthazar frowned at the raggedy, panting runner, then sent the man away. He ducked into his pavilion and sank to his considerable haunches. Isis followed him in, her face gaunt with worry.

The warrior king gazed silently for a moment up at his wife. "Find the boy. And gather up my finest warriors. Nubia needs to send a message to the Scorpion King."


	5. Nubian Eyes

****

V. "My City" 

There were nine of them ranked before the throne. Nine black-skinned Nubian warriors, all bearing short swords and wicked-looking daggers. All clad in the scarlet attire of the red guard. _Nubian eyes will be watching you_, Balthazar had said upon their parting. 

__

He never was one for subtlety, Mathayus growled to himself. 

The nine genuflected as one, vowing loyalty to their new king. Then their captain rose and said, "We are a gift of trust to the Scorpion King, from his friend and brother in the south. With us, we bring one of such great and magnificent courage that he will be sung of in legends for generations to come." 

The king glanced questioningly at his sorceress. 

Cassandra's lips were twitching as if she were trying to hold back a laugh. The guard captain, too, seemed to be suppressing a grin. 

Mathayus wondered silently why everyone seemed to know something he didn't. And then a sun-browned face peered between two red-draped shoulders, and a mischievous grin lit up beneath that impossible tangle of hair.

"Menes!" the king exclaimed. The boy who had stolen twenty blood rubies from the future king flew up the steps to the throne with characteristic disregard for propriety. For once eye to eye with Mathayus, Menes planted hands on hips and examined the new king. "Well?" Mathayus asked with a smile.

The boy grinned again. "You really are king!" Then he poked the ruby set in his friend's golden pectoral. 

Mathayus raised an eyebrow at Menes. "You don't get to steal this one."

***

They'd ensconced Menes in a bedchamber adjacent to their own. Mathayus listened to Cassandra telling the boy a bedtime story about a fox carrying a scorpion across a river. "And when the scorpion stung the fox, the fox asked, 'Why did you sting me?' To which the scorpion replied, 'I'm sorry, friend, but it's my nature.'"

Mathayus listened to her soothing voice and realized that the sorceress would never agree to bear children. She would never want to pass on her dreadful burden to another generation. 

He fell asleep thinking about the boy he'd accidentally slain, and the boy now lying in the next room. 

__

He stood in the Valley of the Dead, close to the gates of the city. Though only a few months had passed since its construction had begun, the necropolis was impossibly complete. Stark against the summer sky and aligned with the sacred cardinal points, four granite obelisks guarded the walls. The gleaming inner temple was surrounded by houses and workshops and shrines that would lie forever empty. 

Vacant, but for the wind, the sand, and the spirits of the dead. 

Something drew his gaze to the western horizon, and suddenly he was there on a bluff, overlooking the necropolis, and he knew this was a dream. Before him stood a strange fetish--a lion had been slain and flayed; its headless pelt hung tail up, like a gruesome banner, from a pole planted upright in a golden urn.

An eerily musical yipping turned Mathayus' head. Behind him and all around him capered a pack of black dogs--no, jackals--trotting and lying down, rolling in the dust and greeting each other with snarls. All with lantern-orange eyes. The hair on the nape of his neck pricked, and Mathayus turned back to find the fetish gone. 

Jesup waited there in its place. Mathayus felt the sands shifting under his feet. He looked down to see grass and grain springing to life from the dead earth all around him, turning the whole valley green and lush in a matter of moments. "My city," the dead Akkadian said. Over his shoulder, the first stars of the evening glittered over the valley.

Then the sky shifted to day, then back to night, and the earth began hissing like disturbed asps. Light flickered to dark flickered to light, and time began to devour the limestone of the necropolis. The pack behind Mathayus barked and laughed, and he spun around, suddenly furious. But instead of the wild dogs, he met a jackal-headed man. 

"Anubis..."

The deity bared spittle-slick canines in a mocking grin. When he spoke, his voice was a low and feral growl. 

"My city," the god of the dead said. 

***

"Did you know there's a giant scarab in the sky?" 

Menes sat at a table in Philos' cluttered shop, hunched over a small pile of wood shavings and bits of cloth and string he'd salvaged from the old man's trash heap.

Philos looked up from his examination of the boy's work, gazing through odd glass lenses that made him look like he had the eyes of a frog. "Good heavens!"

"It pushes the ball of the sun across the sky all day, from morning to night."

"Who's been filling your head with such nonsense?"

Menes shrugged. "Everybody says so." He fiddled silently with the cloth and wood for a moment. "Did you know the sun is really the eye of Horus?"

The old man's beard bristled. "Now look here! If I were a god, I certainly wouldn't want some dung beetle shoving my eyeball around all day." He blinked his big frog eyes, and Menes tried not to giggle. "Religion, my boy, is just people trying to figure out things they're not smart enough to understand." He paused, then added, "Yet."

Menes balanced three sticks together carefully and fastened a bit of cloth over them. "Did you know King Mathayus talks to Anubis in his sleep?" Ignoring Philos' continued stare, he finished his tiny sculpture of King Balthazar's encampment. Then, with a grin and a whoop, he blew it all down.


	6. Ascendance

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Notes: 1) The biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were situated somewhere in Canaan--and indeed, a pair of ash-layered sites have been declared to be the sister cities by eager archeologists. But for the purposes of my story, Sodom and Gomorrah are somewhere between Abu Simbel and Thebes. With all the historical license taken by the movie (chain mail and crossbows being the least of its worries) geographical sleight-of-hand shouldn't be too great a stretch. 2) Because the Nile flows south to north, Upper Egypt is south of Lower Egypt.

****

VI. Ascendance

The Nile flooded and fell back and flooded again. The city of the dead came slowly together, stone by massive stone. Mathayus' borders expanded through Upper Egypt as his people farmed north into the fertile Black Land and south to the edge of Balthazar's kingdom. Farther north, bordering Lower Egypt, the priest-king at Ineb-Hedj sent gifts of gold and concubines, while south of Nubia, Anakronos of Ethiopia sent a mail-clad envoy guarded by six men with spears and crossbows.

Then the news came in from Abydos: The lord of that city had massacred farmers and families living under King Mathayus' banner, raping and looting, burning undefended villages to the ground.

"He wishes to test you, my king," Goshur, the captain of the red guard, said over a map of the region. "Perhaps he wishes to draw you out of your kingdom."

Mathayus gave the man a hard stare. "Perhaps he thinks I will not fight him," he growled.

Cassandra stepped forward, frowning delicately. "If you were to go yourself, my lord, it would not end well for you. Or for Gomorrah."

The king's gaze dropped to the map, and he shifted a troop marker a finger length north. Then another marker, and a third. 

The guardsman nodded. "Yes. From there, we can trap his forces against the curve of the river. But what of our southern border?" 

"Nubia shields us to the south. The only danger there would be from bandits."

The two men looked to Cassandra, who gave grim consent.

"Lay siege to Abydos," the king continued. "When it falls, take three of your best men, find this lord--and bring me his head."

When Goshur was gone, Cassandra asked nervously, "And what of Ethiopia?"

Mathayus grimaced. "Ethiopia is a problem that will require a delicate solution. But if all else fails, Anakronos must still go through Balthazar to get to me." Then a smile softened his features, and he drew Cassandra into a close embrace. "Enough of war. I have happier things to attend to."

***

It was an hour before dawn when they came for him, before Menes was even awake.

All he felt were strong hands gripping his arms and legs, and then a cloth sack was yanked over his head. But he never cried out, he never gave a sign of the terror fluttering in his heart like a trapped bird. Nor did his captors utter a word as they bound his wrists and elbows behind him.

He heard footsteps--three sets? four?--as they hauled him down too many corridors to remember. Then he smelled dust, manure, and the morning dew, and he knew he was out of the palace. Still no one said a word, though Menes could hear a few shocked gasps and whispers from early risers in the streets.

He was thrown like a sack of grain onto a hard surface. A whip cracked somewhere in front of him, and wagon wheels creaked and began to roll. Shutting his eyes tight--all he could see was the inside of the burlap sack, anyway--Menes bit his lip against the prick of tears and wished for Mathayus.

The groan of enormous gates told him they were leaving Gomorrah. His skin rose in goosebumps, though he knew he'd be roasting under the sun before his captors were done with him. With escape impossible, with nowhere to run in the wilds between the sister cities even if he did manage to get free, Menes finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

He dreamt he'd been thrown into a furnace. He awoke sweating and gasping in the heat of the day, but no one removed the heavy bag from his face, and no one offered him anything to drink, though he could hear the slosh of a wineskin nearby.

Somewhere ahead, Menes could hear voices--not one or two, but hundreds of voices; laughing, talking, chanting, arguing voices. The motley odors of a city met his nostrils, and he sat up as best he could with his arms still bound. He would not enter Sodom like a thief brought in for a bounty.

The midday streets sounded packed; the scents of bread, meat, and beer made his stomach rumble. Then the wagon passed under the shadow of an inner gate, into the eerie calm that Menes knew to be a temple. His captors delivered him into smaller, softer hands. 

Delicate whispers guided him to a cool room, where a bowl of water was pressed to his dry mouth. He drank until he was sated. Then his clothes were cut from his body. Menes gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering. The sack was removed, but quickly replaced by a binding wrap over his eyes. It didn't matter, though; he knew that to open his eyes now would be to shame himself.

His skin was washed and his hair clipped, braided, and brushed with scented oil, and then Menes' narrow waist was girded with a simple homespun kilt.

The hands led him down a silent hallway into a chamber that echoed with his footsteps.

"Has he been bathed and anointed?" It was Mathayus' voice, and Menes couldn't help the smile that sprang up.

"Yes, my lord." A woman's voice, perhaps one of the priestesses who had washed him.

"Did he make any outcry when he was taken?"

"No, my lord." A man's voice this time, presumably one of his captors. "He neither called for help nor fought."

"I'm surprised, Menes," the king said, and the blindfold was suddenly whipped away. They were in one of the inner chambers of the Temple of Horus, and King Mathayus stood before him, blindfold hanging from one hand. "I expected my men to be bloodied and broken after taking you. Tooth marks, at the very least."

Menes flushed, but Mathayus grinned, then motioned someone forward. "Dress him."

Two shaven-headed priests came to either side of Menes and removed the rough, colorless wrap from his waist, replacing it with one of fine white linen. They helped him into a pair of sandals, then passed a small bundle of cloth to the king.

Mathayus unwrapped it to reveal a gleaming gold chain, from which dangled an amulet in the shape of a scorpion. He knelt down, fastened the chain around Menes' neck, and kissed his forehead. "You're my son now, Menes. You're my heir. When I'm gone, my throne will pass to you."


	7. Making Rain

****

VII. Making Rain

"So you're sending me away?"

Mathayus and Menes had risen well before dawn to ride out to the plains. Accompanying them were three red guards, a standard bearer, the falconer, the horse master, and a scribe--all of whom had been left a half hour's walk behind them. Their only other companions were a tame cheetah, whom Menes had named Sekhmet, and a whip-tailed coursing hound that Mathayus simply called Dog.

"You'll live and work with Balthazar, in Nubia, for two years. He'll teach you what I can't."

Mathayus whistled sharply, sending Dog racing after a hare. The hound took off in the blink of an eye, and for a few moments, the pair stood admiring the hunter's lean grace and efficiency. Then the hare was caught, the hound whistled back in. Mathayus wrestled the bloodied carcass from Dog's mouth and, with quick and calm efficiency, gutted it.

"What can I learn from Balthazar that I can't learn from you?"

The king finished dressing the kill and hooked the raw carcass to his belt. "That's _King_ Balthazar to you, until you're his equal." 

Menes thought of the Nubian's enormity and wondered if he'd ever be the giant man's equal. He chirruped to Sekhmet and watched her speed out after a small herd of gazelle. The hunting cheetah was swifter than Dog, her spotted pelt more pleasing to the eye, but she was no match for her prey's ability to turn as swift as a falcon midflight. She came back panting heavily, unsuccessful.

"I don't want to leave you, Father."

"And I don't want you to go. But you'll be king over farmers, not warriors, and I can't teach you how to plant or harvest, how to thresh grain or bake bread." The king shaded his eyes, turning to check the sun's position in the sky. "I can teach you how to swing a sword, Menes, but not a scythe."

Menes knelt down, meaning to check the pads of the animals' feet for injuries, but ripping up a long blade of grass instead. "I won't return until I'm sixteen." Bits of the torn blade floated to the ground or drifted away on the breeze. "I'll be a man before you see me again." 

His adoptive father's shadow fell across his own; a hand large and strong enough to crush a man's skull landed gently on his shoulder. "You can track, you can hunt. You know how to kill quickly and cleanly. You've fought in battle, even faced dismemberment. To the Akkadians, you'd be a man already."

The prince nodded at the subtle rebuke. _An Akkadian wouldn't complain about leaving his family. An Akkadian would be proud of the sacred trust his father placed in him._ Then he rose and looked up at Mathayus. "I didn't hide in that wagon because I wanted to fight. I hid in that wagon because I wanted to fight _with you_. Because even then, you were my father."

Mathayus enfolded Menes in a quick and hard embrace, as if he thought that if he held on too long, he'd never let go. Then: "I have something for you." 

From a stiffened leather pouch at his waist, the king drew out a large gold bracelet. "Philos crafted this. Despite the old man's disbelief in anything he can't see and touch, I managed to have him bind a few protections into it." 

The bracelet was an intricate work of art, and Menes wondered why, if Philos was capable of this level of craftsmanship, he kept himself to odd machines and explosive powders. 

Taking Menes' arm, the king fastened the bracelet around his son's wrist. "The scorpion is because you are my son. The head of the jackal is to warn any who desire this bracelet for themselves that it will only give them death." Menes gaped at Mathayus, who smirked back. "Don't worry, son, you can wear it without fear, and so can your lady mother and I--but it's deadly to anyone else." 

He kissed Menes on the forehead then, the way he had when he'd declared him his son. "Wear this when you go to Nubia, in case you're ever lost. It'll show you the way back home, the way back to me."

***

"Hand me that little thingamajig, would you?"

"Which little thingamajig, Philos?" 

"The one there, yes, the one just to the left of that other gizmo."

Cassandra suppressed a laugh and picked up a fragile-looking contraption of sticks and twine. "And what, pray tell, is this supposed to do?"

Philos stopped in the middle of packing knickknacks and frowned at her. "What, you don't remember that? It's the rain maker you built for me when you were just a little girl."

Cassandra's mouth fell open. "But... You mean you hung on to this, all these years?" She stroked the thing, only now remembering the hours she'd spent constructing and reconstructing the toy. She'd never meant it to actually make rain--she just wanted to build something that looked like the rest of the odd gadgets filling Philos' chamber.

"Well, of course," the old man snorted. "You don't think I'm just going to leave it somewhere for any young rascal to pick over?" 

"You know the king has asked you to stay," she said by way of reply. "He values your wisdom."

Philos heaved a monumental sigh and set his pack gently down. "Wisdom. Now, that's something no one can give to the king but himself."

"Menes already has friends in Nubia. He and Balthazar will get along fine..."

"Ah, so now we come to it. It's really you who wants me to stay!" He scratched his beard and chuckled good-naturedly. "My dear, how many times have I told you that I'm far too old for you?"

Taken off guard, the sorceress laughed, but then she sobered. "I need your guidance, old friend. He's changed so much since the days when he was just a wandering hire-sword. He used to be the kind of man who paid no attention to destiny." She smiled fondly for a moment at her memories. "But now he won't do anything without consulting me first."

"Sounds like a well-trained husband to me." He winked at her, but this time she didn't laugh.

"I didn't see anything off about the siege of Abydos. It was a victory, I suppose, but the army was decimated, and only one of Mathayus' red guards made it back alive." She rubbed her arms, shivering. "And so the kingdom has expanded, but the _price_..."

__

She saw Menes lying in a pool of his own blood, a look of shock etched on his boyishly handsome face. She saw him seated on a throne, a young woman of striking beauty at his side.

She saw herself running from her husband's fury. She saw herself nursing her husband's child, smiling. 

She saw Mathayus victorious in battle. She saw him driven away with his army to die of thirst in the desert.

She saw nothing but contradictory images, dreams that shaped themselves, only to vanish as the next rippled over them. Nothing made sense any more.

"Nothing makes sense any more." She realized she'd spoken aloud and added, "Please don't go."

Philos gave a gentle smile. "You know as well as I that the boy will need a familiar face where he's going. Oh, don't worry about me, Cassandra, dear. I'll be fine."


	8. Treachery and Deceit

****

VIII. Treachery and Deceit 

The first sun of Menes' formal ascendance rose clear and cool. The king, the prince, and the sorceress stood outside the city walls, surrounded by guards and priests and the rest of the formal retinue. The gates of the city had been flung open in celebration; four doves had been released, symbolically announcing to the four corners of the world that Menes, son of Mathayus, was the heir to the Scorpion King's throne.

And now that heir was leaving. Three of the red guard would accompany him, and though the prince chafed at their protection--as if he couldn't defend himself perfectly well--he was also grateful for them. These were his father's own honor guard; they were a visible sign of the king's esteem.

They were not, of course, draped in their usual scarlet. Calling attention to themselves like that would be making themselves into moving targets, once they left the civilization of the cities and outlying farms. 

Menes rode in a light but sturdy wagon, drawn by a pair of mules and filled with bales of hay. Nothing to draw the attention--or greed--of the nomads roaming the wilds of Upper Egypt and Nubia. The presence of Philos completed the picture of an old farmer and his young son. And a trio of hired hands wearing leather and homespun, carrying only staffs and flint hand axes. 

Underneath the bales of hay, though, lay the real weaponry. Scimitars and crossbows, short swords and cudgels and slings. It would take a small army, Menes thought, to overcome them.

***

"Anakronos is gathering his armies again. That son of a vulture has been picking at the leavings ever since Memnon's death." As usual, Isis announced herself with a scowl and a snap. But she let the tent flap fall closed before adding, "And you had to hand over your nine best men to Mathayus." 

"The man bears watching," Balthazar rumbled back. "He may be a fine warrior, but can he handle a kingdom? And now _this_," he continued, waving a papyrus roll at Isis. "He's asked me to take care of this boy. As if he thinks I have time," he snarled, "to teach his princeling the finer points of... of looting and pillaging and the bedding of women!"

Isis' laugh was dry. "You're saying you don't want to have the chance to shape the future of your allies?"

"I'm _saying_," he yelled, throwing the papyrus roll to the ground, "that it would be better if Mathayus had never adopted the whelp! I'm about to go to war, Isis, and he wants me to play nursemaid?" Balthazar paused, momentarily shaken by his own anger. "Yes, wife, I want a hand in Mathayus' future. What I don't want is his _using_ me!"

"Then send him a message of refusal."

"It's too late for that. Menes is already on his way." 

"Then what--"

He cut her off with a glare. "I'll just have to think of something else."

***

They camped nightly close enough to the bank of the Nile that they wouldn't become disoriented, but not so near as to bother the monstrous crocodiles living in the sacred river. This was Menes' third night of travel as a simple farmer boy, and he had fallen into it with the ease of one used to hard living. It hadn't been that long since he was a street urchin with only other homeless children to call family.

The red guards took the watch in shifts; Menes had offered to take a watch himself, but was secretly relieved when they refused. Eat when you find food, sleep when you can: that was the rule for someone still not accustomed to palace life.

Wrapping his arms about his ankles, he leaned his chin on his knees and stared into the tiny flicker that was their campfire. _What kind of prince likes sitting on his rear better than standing watch with honorable warriors?_

Philos patted Menes on the back. "Come on now, cheer up, lad. There's much to look forward to when we reach Nubia. I imagine you'll get quite an education from King Balthazar!"

Menes toyed with the golden bracelet, snapping it open and clipping it back around his wrist, stroking the jackal's head and scorpion's tail. "Philos, why don't you make more things like this? You could probably be a famous jeweler." _Snap_. He opened the clasp. "You'd be rich." _Clip._ He squeezed it closed.

The old man chuckled. "That, my boy, is a very good question." He fell silent momentarily, then asked, "Which is more useful to the sorceress, her beauty or her gift?"

Shrugging, Menes said, "Her gift. She can see ahead to what will happen. It's how Memnon won all those battles." _Snap. Clip._

"Well, there, now, you see? I can be more useful by making functional devices to help people. Beauty doesn't serve any practical purpose."

__

Snap. Clip. "Maybe if people thought more about beauty, they'd think less about war."

"Perhaps you're right. It's a good thing to think on, for a future king."

***

After the moon had set, Menes found himself still awake, or nearly so. The fire had long since flickered out, and now only a few embers gave proof of the group's presence. The tall grass surrounding them swayed in the breeze, whispering as if there were secrets only the wind and the grassland knew.

Wispy black clouds scudded across a star-strewn sky. One after another, they sailed the bright river of the gods that traversed the blackness. Three of these clouds, Menes thought as he drifted on the surface of sleep, looked remarkably like human silhouettes.

Cold knifed into his stomach, and he came fully awake with an almost painful stab of fear.

But by the time he yanked the short sword from its sheath under his bedroll, Menes already knew it was too late. Philos lay only a few paces away, starlight glistening wetly in his eyes, on the blood still pouring from his gaping neck and seeping into his beard. 

None of the red guards where anywhere to be seen. 

Menes tried to rise to his feet soundlessly, the way Mathayus had taught him--but how could he be silent, with his heart pounding like a war drum? The very ground beneath his feet seemed to be thudding in time with his terror. He crouched to keep below the level of the grasses--but the problem with that was that now he couldn't see above the grasses.

In the end, it didn't matter. When the darkness came alive to clutch at him, Menes knew _this_ was no rite of passage. This time, there was nothing to stop him from howling in rage and fear, stabbing and slashing in blind desperation. His blade bit into flesh more than once, and he tasted the heat of blood spattering his face.

And then he was flat on his back. Something warm and wet and terribly heavy was lying on his chest. He tried to draw breath, but he tasted only blood, warm and salty.

He found himself looking down on the body of a boy. The boy wore a look of shock etched on his face and a gash across his chest. Beside the body, a golden bracelet had fallen open in the dirt. From somewhere far away, Menes heard Philos' voice saying, _Religion, my boy, is just people trying to figure out things they're not smart enough to understand. Yet._

He gazed up at the river of the gods that shimmered in the sky no matter who lived or died, and he tried to understand.


	9. Shifting Sands

****

IX. Shifting Sands

Tap tap tap tap tap. _It was the sound of the delicate chiseling of stones, carried over the susurration of shifting sands, carried over the heave-hos of massive plinths being lifted into place, carried even over the thunder of enormous limestone blocks grinding into position._

Tap tap tap tap tap._ It was the continuous song of grateful refugees working for their new king, building a city with the full knowledge that it would never be theirs. Because when the flooded Nile fell back, it was the rich black earth left behind, not this wasted desert, that was their new homeland._

Tap tap tap tap tap._ It was a steady knocking, a rapping on the massive double doors leading to the Temple at the heart of the necropolis._

With a grunt and a groan, Mathayus hauled the door open. 

A dead boy stood on the other side.

"Give me a sword!" Thomid demanded. "You slew my brother, Akkadian. It is my right, by the law, to avenge him!"

"That is the old law," Mathayus heard himself reply. "My_ law is kinder." Then he drew his scimitar and slew the boy. The body that fell to the floor, though, was not Thomid's. _

"It was an honor," Jesup whispered, "to die by my brother's blade." 

Mathayus sat up, trembling, and rubbed his face. He looked over at Cassandra, but she slept on, unaware of her husband's troubled mind.

And then he was huddled at the head of the bed, staring. At the foot of the bed, where there had been only darkness a moment before, now stood an imuit fetish, not unlike the one he'd seen in another dream. 

A golden urn. Inside it stood a wooden pole, from which a headless pelt hung, tail up. But where the previous had been a lion's, this hide was long and thin, with a cheetah's pattern of spots.

__

"Sekhmet!"

Mathayus sat up, trembling, and rubbed his face. He looked over at Cassandra, who was just beginning to stir in the first light of dawn. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. 

His double nightmare slowly evaporated in the promise of a pleasurable morning.

Some time later, Mathayus kissed his still-smiling wife and said, "Remind me to have the handler check over Menes' cheetah. That boy will kill me if anything happens to the beast while he's away." 

***

"There are reports that Nubia expects to be overrun by Anakronos' forces." Wekil had taken over the captaincy of the king's red guard after the death of Goshur at Abydos.

The king looked up from the map with a frown. "And Nubia expects aid from us? I've heard nothing about this from Balthazar."

Wekil shifted nervously. "Forgive me, my king, but you would not have. King Balthazar has been engaged with preparations for war." He waited for the king to ask just how he knew this, but the man only cocked an eyebrow and went back to examining the map. Feeling eyes on the back of his neck, he turned to see the sorceress gazing expressionlessly at him.

Wekil suppressed a superstitious shudder and went back to the particulars of the kingdom and its neighbors.

"Expansion is not in question," King Mathayus growled. "The more people I accept into my borders, the more stream in behind them. They need food and homes, and I can't just send them packing." He paused, then said, "Sheba?"

"Would you be willing to fight a war across the sea?" Wekil asked.

The king's eyes shifted immediately to his sorceress.

Silence for a moment, and Wekil could imagine the blankness that came across the face of the sorceress behind him when she used her mystical sight. 

"Uncertainty," she finally replied. "If you lead the army yourself, my lord, the outcome is death for you and for all you lead. Otherwise... otherwise it's all shadows."

There was a sudden, sharp rapping at the doors, and the king spun around, his hand on the hilt of his enormous sword. The massive double doors opened with a groan, and Arpid scuttled in, followed by an old man Wekil didn't recognize.

Arpid came to a trembling halt before King Mathayus. The ex-horse thief had become the king's eyes and ears around the kingdom, bringing him the sorts of news that always seemed to escape the magistrates and tax collectors. Now his keen face wore an expression somewhere between apology and terror. His mouth moved soundlessly, and he threw himself on the ground at the king's feet.

"What is this, Arpid? Get up."

The sorceress laid her hand on the king's broad shoulder, a look of dawning horror on her pale face. "Oh, no... Menes. And Philos?"

With a shriek of leather on steel, King Mathayus' scimitar was out of its sheath and pressed under the old stranger's chin. "What have you done with them?"

"No!" Arpid shouted, jumping to his feet. "No, my king, you misunderstand!" He pushed the sword gently away. "This is only a ferryman. He had no hand in what happened--he only saw it."

The king's eyes shifted from the old man to Arpid, then back to the old man. "Tell me my son is alive."

In a tremulous voice, the old ferryman spoke, his age-yellowed eyes watering. "My lord, I can tell you no such thing."

King Mathayus staggered as though physically struck. 

"'Tis my custom," the ferryman said, "to sleep in my boat, i'case o' late night business, like. The river goddess, she's taken a likin' to me, I gather, since nary a crocodile's worried me fer some years." He paused, scratching his head. "I can't rightly say as what happened, ye see. They's not too far offa me, I'm wonderin' if I might not have a call for service soon--but next thing, them three big men're stackin' the boy and th'old man inna that wagon o' theirn. They's killed 'em, they have. Killed 'em in their sleep, I suppose, since I heard on'y a shout from th'boy."

In a hollow voice, the king asked, "What three men?"

"Why, the three as came with 'em!"

Wekil felt the blood leave his face as his stomach turned to lead.

"I've had enough of Balthazar's contrivances," the king growled, his voice shaking. "He'll have no military aid from Gomorrah." He turned a deadly gaze on Wekil. "You'll take your men to the shores of Sheba. You'll either win me land, or win me your deaths."

His legs trembling, Wekil gave a short nod, then marched out to find the remainder of the red guard. If Balthazar had betrayed Mathayus, then he had betrayed them as well, and there was only one thing left to do. 

They would dig their graves in Sheba.


	10. The Enemy of My Enemy

****

X. The Enemy of My Enemy

Arpid huddled against the flying sand and swore never again to agree to one of these schemes. _If that blasted camel of the king's spits at me one more time_, he thought, _I'll... I'll spit right back! Or maybe I'll see how tasty its meat is. Camel stew would do nicely right about now. If I had some water._

He gazed forlornly at his empty wineskin and prayed for rain instead of sand. But at least the wind was blowing the stench of the royally ugly beast away from him. Not for nothing had he been a _horse_ thief. _I should not have taken the king's camel. Perhaps, if Set is smiling on me, my traveling companions will put this damnable animal out of my misery._

As if sensing Arpid's petulant thoughts, the camel, kneeling by him in the sandstorm, belched disapprovingly. The thief glared at the beast, wrapped himself a bit tighter in his cloak, and resolved to ignore the belligerent creature for the duration of the storm. 

But he didn't want to contemplate the rest of the trek through the parched wasteland west of Nubia; nor did entering Ethiopia bear thinking of. _I should not have taken the king's camel._

A mail-gloved hand patted his shoulder. "Not much longer now," Selasser yelled over the wind, and the warriors ringed around them nodded their understanding. The Ethiopian didn't withdraw his touch, but kept a firm grip on the shorter man. 

Arpid was less than comforted. _I should never have taken the king's camel._

***

The late afternoon sun spilled, honey gold, into the throne room where Mathayus paced like a caged lion. "Amarna is poorly defended, has little to no standing army, and is situated in an especially fertile stretch of land. If Amarna falls, Thebes will eventually follow. Tell me again _why_ you want me to let an opportunity like this slip by?"

Cassandra let her eyes linger on the Khnum-sphinx to the left of the throne. It was easier than looking at the king. "I see nothing good from you going into battle, my lord."

"How is it," Mathayus growled, "that you never see anything good about me going into battle?" She made no reply. "_Look at me!_" he roared.

She looked. 

The king had aged years since the report of Menes' death only days before. Laugh lines that were once barely visible had been replaced by the fine creases of worry, sorrow, and an anger that burned low but frighteningly constant. His eyes held a spark which reminded her daily that this man was trained not for kingship, but murder.

"Do you only ever see my death?" he whispered. "Or do you just not want me to go?"

Blinking back tears, Cassandra slumped in defeat. "I've seen your death more times than I can count, Mathayus. And it doesn't matter how many times I see you victorious--the vision is always followed by another of you defeated." She huddled into herself, closing her eyes and hugging her shoulders. Mathayus wrapped one arm around her, lifting her chin with tender fingers. Trembling, she met his gaze. 

Mathayus' fierce expression softened. "I can only die once."

"That's comforting," she said sardonically.

"Cassandra, my son is dead." The king's voice cracked. "My boy is gone." He swayed on his feet then, and she helped him up the steps to his throne. He sat heavily and leaned his head on his fist. "I've sent Arpid to Ethiopia." 

"Arpid?" Cassandra repeated incredulously. "But he's a horse thief!"

"Thief, diplomat. What's the difference?" he laughed humorlessly. "The enemy of my enemy..." He gave her a bleak look. "Anakronos and I have things to discuss."

***

The rider was killed before he ever found Balthazar's nomadic encampment. The scouts brought to the king the horse and the Ethiopian's head, as well as a sheet of parchment that had been folded into one of the saddlebags.

Balthazar opened it with a scowl; a moment later, the parchment fell, forgotten, from his numb hands. "That jackal-tongued son of Set..." he muttered. He looked around at the people gathered near him, at the soldiers, at the women and children, at the old men. Then his eyes found Queen Isis and her fierce warrior women. She nodded in silent understanding and made her way toward their pavilion and privacy.

Balthazar let the tent flap fall closed behind him and sighed. "Anakronos lured Mathayus into a trap," he said heavily.

"What do you mean?" 

"I'm going to that necropolis Mathayus has been building. You'll stay here with the armies. Be prepared for anything, Isis--but don't do anything stupid." He glared at her. "You _run_ if you have to, woman."

Isis shook her head slowly, frowning. "I still don't understand. Why are you going to the Valley of the Dead?"

"That's where Anakronos left Mathayus' body."


	11. The Negative Confession

****

XI. **The Negative Confession**

There were forty-two supporting pillars in the long main chamber of the Temple of Anubis in Mathayus' necropolis, each carved with one of the forty-two parts of the Negative Confession. _I have done no iniquity_, read the inscription chiseled on one. _I have done no murder_, read another. _I have not acted with guile, I have not been deceitful, I have caused no tears to be shed._ The pillars seemed to have been grown from the floor, like a strange stone forest.

Balthazar trod quietly through that great, oddly echoing chamber, feeling as though he was disturbing the peace of someone--or some_thing_. His every step was magnified by the silence it broke.

Between the forest of pillars, the remaining ceiling was painted matte black and inlaid with thousands of gemstones set in the shapes of the zodiacal constellations. The sky model was oriented so that the central constellation was that of Scorpio, facing towards the western wall of the chamber where a massive granite statue of Anubis sat enthroned. As Balthazar neared the throne, a heavy chill laid itself across his shoulders.

Anubis' feet rested upon a block of limestone carved in relief with the weighing of the mortal heart against the Feather of Truth. To the right of the scales knelt jackal-headed Anubis, while to the left waited a monster. With its front half a lion, its back half a hippopotamus, and its head that of a crocodile, Ammut, the hideous Eater of the Dead, waited to devour the unworthy heart.

Balthazar shuddered.

***

Nephthys led the flight from the Nubian encampment, leaving her sister Isis at the head of the small army awaiting the inevitable. Runners from the south had brought the alarm at dawn: Anakronos and his legions had crossed north into Nubia and were steadily ravishing the tiny kingdom. Farmers, smiths, and peddlers were put to the sword along with their families; fields were burned and the land desecrated.

But the Nubians had begun as a nomadic people, and when the need arose, they could simply pack up and find a new home. Now they fled to Upper Egypt, where the great cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Thebes promised at least safety, if not the spacious freedom they had known in the south.

Behind the young mothers, the children, and the elderly, there waited everyone willing and able to fight; their own deaths only meant the invaders would be stalled long enough for their families to escape. Women left behind their husbands, children their fathers, old men their daughters, knowing they would never see their loved ones again. 

So Nephthys left behind her sister. She knew Balthazar had warned Isis not to stay, but the woman's stubborn pride demanded it. And though Nephthys burned with the humiliation of retreat, something inside told her this was honor of a different sort--that the goddesses she and her sister had been named for would not be disgraced.

Her legs aching already in anticipation of the long march, Nephthys turned to look at the motley army of folk who had abandoned their pride along with all the rest of their belongings. Her people had become broken refugees. 

***

At a low groan at the far end of the long chamber, Balthazar felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick. The massive double doors opened with a moan, spilling hot, white daylight through the pillared dusk of the sanctuary. A shadowed figure strode in.

Balthazar ripped his sword from its sheath, his lips curling in a feral snarl. The silhouette mirrored his movement, steel shrieking on leather, and the Nubian king grinned in anticipation. 

"Anakronos," he growled. "Come on in and meet your death."

The figure raised its curved blade, then disappeared into the gloom.

Backing towards a carven pillar, Balthazar scanned the darkness for any hint of movement. His opponent was crafty, preferring to stalk him in the shadows rather than facing him in the central clearing. But two could play that particular game. Despite his bulk, the Nubian was far from clumsy, and he moved easily through the sheltering columns.

The rustle of boiled leather armor, the pad of running footsteps, and Balthazar spun toward the sound. But there was nothing but carven pillars. _I have spoken no lies. I have caused no pain._ The eerie acoustics of the sanctuary made it impossible to pinpoint the echoes. 

The warrior king took a steadying breath and began the stalk.

***

Isis' feet churned up bloody mud, and she almost went down. 

The first hundred or so enemy soldiers lay dead or dying at the feet of the Nubian defenders, but Isis' warriors had lost enough of their own that the next Ethiopian charge would likely wipe them out. She hadn't time enough even to mop the sweat and blood from her face before a second wave was upon them. 

Strike, parry, shield up, strike again, ignore the pain from too many cuts and slashes to count. She knew she was shouting, screaming, but had no idea whether she yelled words or simple animal challenges. Her ranks were slowly thinning, being forced back toward a narrow pass at the head of the valley. At least that would provide some protection from flanking attacks. 

The ground under her sandals turned from sucking mud to solid dirt, then to stone. The man next to her went down, but she had no time to think about him, much less help. There was only the enemy before her, killing and being killed. 

They would mourn their fallen later. If any of them survived to mourn.

***

Arpid huddled among the papyrus reeds clustered on the bank of the sacred river. _Home, I must get home. I must warn Mathayus._

He kicked himself mentally. Thief and spy that he was, he should have seen the truth behind the deception. It was too late for Nubia--but Arpid's cunning had at least let him escape Ethiopia in time to possibly save Gomorrah. There would be bad blood between Egypt and Nubia for generations to come, though. A man could not begin a blood feud and expect it to end quickly.

__

Don't do it, Mathayus, he prayed silently. _Don't kill Balthazar._

***

If he'd had the time to think, Balthazar would probably have laughed. He felt, ridiculously, like a cat after its own tail. From past experience, he knew that Anakronos was not much smaller than himself, but the man could move like a ghost. Each hunted the other, like day chasing night chasing day.

He took a weaving path, starting and stopping at every stray sound, through the columnar forest near the southern wall of the temple chamber. Light spilled liquidly among the pillars, casting crazy shades and painting a labyrinth of shadows.

There was a flicker of movement to his left, a sudden stirring of stone dust, and Balthazar charged headlong toward it, eager to bring this game to an end. Blood thundered in his ears, an alarm shrieked up his spine, but he knew even before he saw the blade that it was too late to stop.

A flash of cold light on even colder steel. Gripping the scimitar, a broad and able hand. Massive chest and shoulders and a familiar face--a very much alive face--that held an alien rage.

Mathayus met Balthazar's rush with a fist, then a furious kick that knocked the giant to his knees. His sword ripped through air, then armor, then flesh. The Nubian sank back against a column with a look of shock and betrayal. 

__

For my son, Mathayus thought as he watched Balthazar's slow collapse. _For Menes._

"But..." Balthazar coughed. 

"You understand, Balthazar," Mathayus said. "It's the nature of kingship."

Blood, black in the flat light, bubbled from Balthazar's lips. "But you were my brother."

"And there is no greater honor," Mathayus whispered, "than to die by your brother's blade."

Mathayus glanced up at the inscription on the pillar. _I have committed no transgression._ Steel rang against carven stone, and the Akkadian stalked away.


	12. Dust and Duplicity

****

Warning: Implied rape.

XII. Dust and Duplicity

"Back!" Isis screamed to her comrades. "Fall back into the pass!" They let the Ethiopians drive them between the high cliffs but demanded blood for every inch of ground they gave. Here at the head of the valley, the mouth of the mountains closed around them in a trap. In this tapering pass, though, a handful of warriors could keep an entire army at bay.

For a time.

Before them was the invading force. Tall, dark warriors, lean of limb but quick with blade and spear. Behind them the walls of the pass melted together into a single imposing cliff. Through the dust and blood, Isis thought she could see Anakronos himself, a broad man wearing a copper breastplate and heavy gold bracelet. But that was impossible; the Ethiopian warlord was several days' ride to the north. Even now, Balthazar would be fighting him, looking to free Mathayus' remains from Anakronos' treachery.

But here the enemy would have a taste of treachery for themselves. The Egyptians were not the only folk skilled in stonework. The trap would swallow the Nubian survivors--and then it would save them.

Several of the Nubian warriors took position in front of Isis and the others, who dug out the pile of stones and dead tree limbs hiding the entrance into a narrow cave. Isis motioned her people into the cave; one by one, the defenders disappeared, leaving fewer and fewer to the bloodlust of the enemy. Shouts of alarm ran through the Ethiopian troops as their quarry disappeared. 

Then it was Isis' turn. She yelled to the final two guards to follow, then backed into the cave. But only one of the men came after. The other turned just long enough to give a salute, then triggered the rockfall to seal them in. The cave fell into complete blackness.

Isis touched the stones piled over the cave mouth, her heart in her throat. _He could have triggered the fall from inside. Why...? _She grimaced. _He had to make sure it worked._ She turned into the darkness. "Light the torches. We have a long way to go."

***

The stone floor of the throne room was still stained with brown, showing where the blood of five traitors and one boy had been spilled. Mathayus had ordered the spots sanded repeatedly. Normally, he hated walking over the stains, but now he ignored them. 

His sword hand itched. 

"It was never King Balthazar's intention," Arpid was saying as Mathayus paced back and forth restlessly, "to have the boy--your son--harmed." The thief stood, trembling slightly, shifting from foot to foot, and wringing a leather cap between his hands, casting desperate looks at Cassandra when he thought the king wasn't watching. 

__

Does he think she'll_ get him out of this?_ Mathayus snarled to himself. "And what of the red guards escorting Menes and Philos?"

"They..." Arpid paused to clear his throat. "They were sent orders bearing King Balthazar's seal."

Mathayus drew his sword, noting Arpid's flinch. He started pacing again, tapping the blade against the palm of his left hand. A seal--even a king's--was nothing more than a rough design set in clay. Not too difficult to counterfeit. He scraped the flat of the scimitar against one painted column as he passed, taking a sour delight in the metal's squeal on the limestone.

"They thought they were carrying out Balthazar's orders?" the king asked. No one answered. Mathayus' nostrils twitched, seeking the clean, familiar smell of sand and heat, but finding only dust and duplicity. "He made to replace Memnon's rats, but sent me snakes instead. He never meant them to be loyal to me." 

"Mathayus, I think you should--" Cassandra stopped as the king turned on her.

"You," he growled, pointing the tip of his sword in her direction, "have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn't do. _Sorceress_," he spat. "A _sorceress_ would have seen through Anakronos' deception." He glared at Cassandra, gritting his teeth against the rising pain in his chest. His eyes clouded and stung, and he turned on his heel, and then, with a wordless bellow of anguish, hurled his sword away. 

Arpid ducked with a yelp. The scimitar whirled over his head and stuck fast, quivering, in the wood of one of the doors.

Mathayus turned back to Cassandra, his chest heaving. He couldn't seem to get enough air. "My son is dead, _sorceress_." She stared at him, then her eyes slid away to her right, and she backed up toward the steps to the throne. The king caught her in two paces and held her in a bruising grip. "And _you didn't see it_!" 

The sorceress cried out as Mathayus' fingers dug into her upper arms. He threw her down onto the steps, then straddled her. Her halter snapped easily; her loincloth followed with a jingle of gold and gems. Somewhere behind him, Mathayus heard Arpid's stifled gasp, then the groan and slam of the throne room door as the thief fled.

"You'll give me sons," the king said with a grunt. "And I'll give them the world."

***

The night air was cold and dry as Nephthys drifted through the dark camp.

__

Not even a camp, really, she thought. _Just a great, hopeless cluster of folk shivering on the ground_. The remains of families were huddled together in tiny, frightened packs. Those who had no relatives left tended the low fires, passed around half-empty wineskins, or simply sat rocking and muttering to themselves.

Two infants died of illness and exposure before the dawn. Three people wandered off in the night and did not return: taken by leopards, perhaps, or set off on their own, or merely gone to find a place to die in solitude. One vicious fight broke out over food, resulting in a shallow but nasty gash to a young mother's temple. The injured woman would not, Nephthys thought, last the rest of the journey.

Sleep was nothing more than a faint shadow at the back of her mind. Nephthys couldn't help wishing she'd stayed behind with Isis and the rest of the defenders. At least they didn't have to watch their loved ones slowly turning into animals.


	13. A Good King

****

XIII. **A Good King **

__

"Cassandra!"

She awoke afraid. What had she dreamed? Voices. Running. Screams and cries and the half-seen passage of flaming arrows. She saw again Philos dead on the ground, an arrow piercing his chest. A memory of a vision of a thing that had never happened. 

Clenching her fists against her breast, Cassandra suppressed a sob. She'd always had a mentor, even in the blackest of times with Memnon. Philos would be there, always and forever, any time she needed guidance, or a breath of friendship, or simply a smile. He would have known what to do, he would have told her where to go. But Philos, like Menes, was dead, and she was only Cassandra.

The air was heavy, like a thick blanket. Something was happening; far off outside the city gates, something stirred. Beside her, the shadowed form of the king slumbered on, unaware of his sorceress' distress. She took a deep, fluttering breath, then rose, dressed silently, and made for the door. 

One of her sandals scuffed on the floor. Cassandra froze, turned back, watched Mathayus breathing deeply and evenly for several long moments. Then she slipped without another sound through the door.

She remembered coming this way, to this gate, garbed in nothing but a few strips of cloth, a veil thrown over her hair, a threatening knife held almost invisibly against her waist. Just so had the future king kidnapped her. But this time, the soldiers at the gates did not ignore her transit, instead snapping a salute to the king's sorceress and consort.

"Open the gates," Cassandra ordered.

"Pardon, m'lady, but we can't let 'em in till sunrise. And even then, no wise all of 'em."

Ever the sorceress, Cassandra kept her posture still and dignified, and her gaze calm. "I did not say to let them in, guardsman." The man hesitated, moved, hesitated again. Then, shrugging, he nodded to his comrade, and they heaved the gates open just enough to let Cassandra through.

The gate guard watched the sorceress slip into the night. He nodded to his junior again, and the young man trotted off in the direction of the palace.

The gate shut with a thud behind Cassandra. Glancing nervously back at it, she offered up a prayer to whichever god might be listening, then strode into the shantytown of Nubian refugees that had sprung up in the night before the western wall of Gomorrah.

Rat-chewed tents flapped like crows' wings in the wind. A handful of starving dogs let out pitiful whines and slunk away, whipcord tails tucked between bony legs. Cassandra swallowed hard. Lining the sketchy paths like garbage were bodies and heaps of rags, each indistinguishable from the next; but she did not care to discover which was which. 

The stench was impossible.

Something drew the sorceress on, something she knew better than to question. Soon, she found herself ducking into one of the many patchwork tents in the camp. There was only one occupant, a woman, curled up in a filthy rug.

"Nephthys."

The woman shot up like a startled bird. "Who...?" Even through the darkness, Cassandra could see the woman's resemblance to Queen Isis. 

"Leave. You must be gone by morning."

Nephthys shook her head and blinked up at the sorceress. "What--why?"

"You'll find no succor here. Mathayus has turned against you. If you stay, you'll all be killed."

"Mathayus has--you mean he's alive?" The slender Nubian woman leapt up. "But... by all the gods, _why_? Surely this isn't about Balthazar's refusal to school the boy--"

"Menes... is dead." Cassandra's throat closed again in grief. "He was murdered by the red guards sent to escort him--the very guards your king sent in trust to Mathayus."

"No!" Nephthys shouted. Not far away, several dogs began to bark. "Balthazar would never--sorceress, you must believe me! He is a good man, a good king!"

Cassandra was trembling now. Her breath came in short, ragged, gasps, but she managed to say, "It wasn't Balthazar's doing."

Nephthys' lips twisted in a snarl. "Anakronos. When I find that dog, I will personally rip out his..." She trailed off, her eyes narrowing. When she continued, her voice was like ice. "Balthazar traveled to the Valley of the Dead to retrieve Mathayus' body. But you say that Mathayus is not dead. So where is my king, sorceress? Where is my sister's husband?"

Sorrow and shame and a choking terror smothered Cassandra, spotting her vision and turning her knees to water. _Dead_, she thought she said aloud, but there was a rushing in her ears, and for the space of a heartbeat, she knew nothing. When she came back to herself, she was lying on the ground, curled about her misery like a cat suckling kittens.

At first, she thought the cries were her own.

Then the rushing in her ears resolved itself into the muted roar of flames, and she scrambled out of the tent to a vision that had never come to pass.

__

"Dates?" the boy had offered. "Oh, thank you," she had replied with a smile, laying an affectionate hand on his head.

Men, women, and children ran screaming in all directions while flaming arrows--_flew from the cliffs above_--whirred from the battlements. _Philos and Arpid_--an old man and his son--_lay dead_--arrow shafts jutting obscenely from their chests. She turned just in time--_her hair whipping across her face_--to see a man on horseback riding hard toward her.

"Cassandra!"_ It was Memnon, come to recapture her_. It was Mathayus, and he caught her up in his strong arms and heaved her over the horse's back.

The western gates closed again around Mathayus and Cassandra, and the arrows continued falling like the wrath of the gods onto the undefended camp.


	14. With His Sorceress at His Side

****

XIV. **With His Sorceress at His Side**

Somewhere in all the chaos of that night, a camel paced through the middle of the ruined camp, ignoring the abandoned bodies and rubbish, finally settling next to the western gate to wait, stoically gurgling, until morning. As the sun peeked over the far mountains, the camel was towed by a sleepy-eyed soldier to the palace horse master, who, in a bit of a shock, notified his lord that a unique albino camel had appeared.

The pen smelled of camel, goat, horse, and more camel. Geese waddled through occasionally, and flies buzzed everywhere, even in the cool of the morning. 

Mathayus went over his camel with careful hands. The scraps of saddle cloth still clinging to its shrunken hump were useless, of course; but other than needing a good feed and plenty of water, the creature was healthy.

"I always said camels were smarter," the king remarked to no one in particular. The camel humphed agreeably. "Well, Camel, not that I expected you to make it back after Arpid left you out there, but I'm glad to see you." 

Humphing again, the beast stretched out its neck and lipped Mathayus' hair. 

Mathayus scowled as he shoved the camel's nose away. "You know, I wish we'd never taken Pheron's offer. All it's led to is killing, and more killing." He chuckled grimly, then spat. "This from an assassin. But this assassin is tired of kingship. It's nothing but scheming and planning and betrayal." 

He picked up a rough cloth hung over a reed gate and began scrubbing at the camel's filthy hide. "These people expect me to protect them, Camel, and I can't even protect one boy. All I do is kill." He scrubbed harder and harder, until the camel craned its neck back, groaning. "I can tell you one thing, though. With my sorceress at my side, no mortal can defeat us. And I'll make certain she's always at my side."

The camel gingerly folded one leg after the other underneath its ungainly body, closed its long-lashed eyes as it settled to the ground, and gave a long sigh.

"Me too, Camel. Me too."

***

The caverns, one after another after another, wove deep and silent under the mountains. There were fourteen of Isis' warriors left, including the queen herself. All that long night, into the next day, and on into the following evening--three days, though it was one unending dark for the travelers--they journeyed through the earth's belly.

At the echo of their footsteps, scuffing against the rough and silent ground, Isis knew the gods themselves were listening. Even their breaths came back to them, weirdly modulated, as if the caves were some giant musical instrument.

They filed past sunken lakes; in the flickering torchlight, they could see pale fish under the water--fish with no eyes. There were winding limestone stairs, fashioned, it seemed, by the hand of Geb the earth god himself. Then there were forests of impossible pillars, formed from stone that had somehow melted like beeswax. Even the awed whispers among the travelers fell silent then.

They saw things that none would ever be able to speak of again; there were no words for such wonders.

***

The sun dipped past the horizon. The fiery orange streaking through the slit windows turned to red; the air took on the stifling odor of jasmine, and Cassandra rolled over and pretended to fall asleep. The king had taken away her freedom, and then he had taken away her choice. She wondered what he felt, what he thought of, as he lay in that place between waking and sleeping.

Quietly, as if in her sleep, she rolled over again and laid one hand on his arm.

Mathayus muttered something, sighed deeply, and fell into darkness.

__

He saw some sort of temple. Not the Temple of Anubis in the city of the dead--a burial chamber, richly stocked with painted foods and pleasures, ushabtis, golden idols, and treasures to fill an afterlife. Meticulously cast statues, of a finer make than he'd ever seen, guarded the sanctuary with swords, spears, and battle axes. 

He saw a man of great power in this burial chamber. Not dead, no. He was tall and strong, bald of head and clear of eyes. This man had the power of the elements, of storm and plague and insect, at his hands. His eyes mirrored the powers of life and death. Mathayus thought of Menes and wondered.

He saw the man kneel before him as the temple chamber began to crumble. "I am your servant!"

The king smiled.

Cassandra pulled away. Her hand flew unbidden to her mouth; she bit it to keep from crying aloud. Chills ran along her arms and back, and she felt sick.

She lay awake for a long time. Finally she rolled out of bed, dressing as quickly as she could. Then she turned away to don her sandals.

"Where are you going, sorceress?"

Mathayus had woken and was gazing at her expectantly. He seemed to glow with power in the aftermath of his dream. Finding herself unable to answer him, Cassandra sent out a desperate call, hoping it would be answered. Hoping it would not come too late.

***

On the third day, Isis and her companions came to a long tunnel. And here they stopped for hours and stared. Along each wall and the low, arching ceiling were paintings atop paintings. None could say when they had been made, or by whom. On the left side had been preserved animals hunting animals, men hunting animals, and men hunting men. 

Much of the newer artwork was layered over older stuff, making some of the beasts look like amalgamations of several creatures. There was an animal that seemed giraffe on one end, antelope on the other. A bizarre mixture of baboon and ibis followed a three-headed man with five legs. A man painted red was attacked by another man overlayered by what looked like a giant scorpion. As the torchlight flared and danced, figures seen from the corner of the eye shifted and stirred, and then fell still.

The right side had also once shown animals, and in some places spotted cattle grazed on; but these had faded over the eons. Now there was only a woman--or a series of women--running down the wall. Her arms were slender, her legs long and muscular; figure after figure, she took great strides along the winding corridor. As Isis and her company followed, the painted woman grew more abstract. Her feminine features became more pronounced: breasts and abdomen expanded, buttocks and thighs grew stylistically outsized. Isis wondered whether she was fleeing, or running toward something.

The last painting of the woman, across from the man-scorpion on the opposite wall, showed her midstride. Between her legs was a duck and a circle with a central dot--"Son of the sun" in hieroglyphs. Isis stared at it for a long time, before one of the group touched her shoulder.

"Look," the warrior said. "Sunlight. We are almost there."

Coming out of the cave was like waking from a dream. Isis felt that she had learned something, that she had spoken to something else in that cave, had been given some great secret; but the harder she tried to remember, the more it slipped away. Under the full light of the golden morning, the whispered riddle vanished.


	15. No Succor Here

****

XV. No Succor Here

Through the smallest cracks in the great stone blocks they came, like slivers of the night. The arid sands spat them out to swarm into Gomorrah, startling the cats hunting in the granary and setting every dog in the city to frantic yelping. They didn't stay long in the city proper, instead converging on the palace itself. Afterwards, no one could have said how many there were, not even the sorceress herself.

"Where are you going?" the king repeated, advancing on Cassandra before she had taken even a step away. Only her long experience as Memnon's captive kept her from breaking down, giving in. She drew her dignity about her like a cold cloak, as she had done every day in Memnon's service. _How ironic_, she thought, _that I should be grateful to Memnon for helping me flee Mathayus. And how horrible._

"You're not yourself," Cassandra said. "And I can no longer live like a slave." Something smooth and cool slipped across her feet, and a wash of gratitude flooded her. Her call had been answered. The uraeus flared up between Cassandra and the king; fangs flashed through the darkness with an angry hiss. 

Mathayus stopped, eyes shadowed. "I know your tricks, Cassandra. I've seen this one before." Then his hands fisted, and he spat at the cobra. It flinched away. With a smile that made Cassandra shiver, he sidled around the serpent. But another sprang up in his path, and another. The sorceress risked a glance at her feet and almost cried out.

They were everywhere.

Cassandra jerked back, shuddering with the knowledge that she would inevitably step on one of the serpents. But she didn't look away from the king; she couldn't let herself stop and see what she'd done. _I didn't know this would happen_, her mind screamed as more and more of the cobras surged up around Mathayus. _Don't hurt him, oh please, don't hurt him._

Despite the darkness, Cassandra could still see the king's desperation as she edged away toward the door. "Cassandra! Don't leave me!"

She half hoped that one of the serpents would strike her, would take away this dreadful world and replace it with a long, dark sleep. But every step fell somehow on bare floor, and she had no choice but to abandon her king.

Out the bedchamber door, into the torch-lit hallway, and still the cobras rippled over the floor. The acrid tang of musk and scales made her cough. Cassandra fled through the winding corridors, passing fallen guards who hadn't the wit to stay still when the things surrounded them. _Is anyone in this whole cursed place still alive?_

***

She didn't know how long she'd lain insensate. For a while, she didn't even know who she was. Fire, she remembered. And darkness after a long journey. Was she dead, then? She pushed herself up to hands and knees with a whimper for the pain, and opened her eyes. Slowly her vision adjusted to the darkness.

Not dead--not unless there was death in the afterlife, as well. 

__

"Nephthys." 

She looked around, casting anxiously about for whomever had spoken, but saw nothing, save for the bodies, burnt and arrow-marked, lying among the shreds of cindered tents.

__

"Leave. You must be gone by morning." 

Nephthys whimpered again and pressed her hands to her head. _Stop it_, she wailed to the voice in her mind. But it would not be silent.

__

"You'll find no succor here. Mathayus has turned against you." 

__

Mathayus, she thought. _The bastard who killed us. Who murdered my king._ A sob tore at her throat, and hot tears touched her cheeks like molten metal.

__

"If you stay, you'll all be killed."

Nephthys' grief turned into a harsh, tearing laugh. "Too late, sorceress. We're all dead anyway." She got to her feet shakily and began to stumble away. If Mathayus' soldiers had been too lazy to make sure the enemy were all dead, she thought grimly, why should she stay around to let them rectify their mistake?

__

"Where is my king, sorceress? Where is my sister's husband?"

She had to find her sister. Somewhere in this whole, blighted Black Land, Isis would be searching, all unknowing, for a dead man.

***

"Hsst! Sorceress!"

Cassandra halted, looking frantically all around for the voice. Then she looked up and gasped.

Arpid clung like a spider to the ceiling, hands and feet braced against the walls. "Could I maybe have a little help here?"

"Of... of course." The hissing, writhing mass of serpents thinned away, leaving a patch of bare floor that Arpid tumbled onto.

"That's some nice trick," he said with a queasy grin as he followed Cassandra down the hall toward the palace gates. "I didn't know you could do that, with all those cobras, you know."

"Neither did I," she whispered. 

Finally, they were outside, away into the city, and Cassandra hugged herself as they ran. She cast her mind back to the palace for a moment--

"Is he still alive?" Arpid asked.

The sorceress nodded in relief, and they came to the city gates.

"Stop right there, sorceress," one of the guards warned. "You're not to leave the city again, king's orders."

Something cold flickered between Cassandra's shoulders, testing her, questioning her. "Arpid." The thief cocked his head at her. "Stay very still. There's no ceiling here for you to cling to."

"Oh, great Set," Arpid muttered, but Cassandra could see that he would obey her. 

It started with a low rustling, like wind over a distant field. Both guards' hands flew to their weapons, their faces showing a growing uneasiness as the susurration neared. Arpid glanced uneasily at his feet, then at the sorceress. "Can we leave yet?" he hissed.

Cassandra felt sweat beading on her face. Closing her eyes, she clenched her hands into fists. "They're under the sand," she murmured. "I don't know if I can..." 

Her eyes snapped open. "Run!"


	16. City of the Living

****

XVI. City of the Living 

The sorceress flipped the piece of flatbread over and over in her hands. She stared into the night above the campfire, then looked back at the uneaten bread in her hands. Finally, she took a small, unwilling bite, knowing she'd have need of all her strength soon enough. But a choked cough escaped her throat, and Cassandra gave up on eating. 

She glanced at her companion. "You know, I was in love with Memnon once."

Arpid gaped at Cassandra across the small fire in the sand. "You--but... Why?"

"A long time ago, I had a vision. It was one of my first, and I didn't know then how changeable they could be." A pair of mules stood just inside the firelight, pack animals that the thief had procured. One of them stamped, and the other whickered back. "In my vision, I was the beloved of a handsome, dashing hero king." She laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. "The dreams of a little girl."

Arpid tossed a couple more dry twigs onto the fire, then laid back down on his bedroll. "What has happened to Mathayus, lady? He hates the whole world."

"Not the world. He hates himself. He blames himself for Menes' death." Cassandra drew her thin blanket tighter around her shoulders. "I miss Menes terribly. I miss him as much as I do Philos. Did you ever have a family, Arpid?"

The thief grinned. "Although I am sure there was once a woman who brought me into the world, alas, I cannot remember the blessed event." He paused, and his grin evaporated. "I was taken from the streets in my youth by the priests of Set."

Cassandra smiled up at the stars, blinking back tears. "I was there when Memnon killed Mathayus' brother. We both know the lengths he'll go to for revenge."

Somewhere far away, a jackal ki-yied. Cassandra shivered. _Anubis must be smiling tonight_, she thought. The sound of the gate guards' dying shrieks, as she and Arpid had fled the city and the horrors she'd called up, filled her mind, and Cassandra shivered again. _I've given him many souls._

"Sorceress, I have served Set for as long as I can remember. He loves chaos and treachery. But there is nothing he loves more than bringing a king low. His hand was with us in the fight against Memnon, and he will be with us when Mathayus falls." Arpid heaved a sigh. "He is my god, and I am his priest. It is my duty to follow his will." 

He was silent for a long time. Then: "I miss them, too. And I miss our Akkadian."

"You hate him," Cassandra said softly, her voice nearly blending into the murmur of the fire. "Don't you? You hate Set."

The little thief looked pointedly at the bread sitting limp in Cassandra's hands. "You should eat, sorceress. And sleep. We have a long walk to Thebes."

***

The city of Amun would rise golden under the midday sun. Isis knew this because she'd seen Thebes once before, when she and Balthazar had come to plead for the king's help to fight Memnon. Now, though, the full moon laved the city in cold silver, as cold as the king's heart had been toward the barbarian peoples Memnon enslaved. "These are not the children of my gods," the king of Thebes had said.

Isis stumbled half asleep up to the night-locked gates, not sure whether her surviving few were with her, but too tired to care. She was sick; sick with fear and sorrow, with the taste of blood that had not left her mouth since this whole madness had begun. 

Gomorrah was closed to them, that much she knew. That much she could understand from the wasteland around the walls of the once great city. Nephthys' pennant was the one thing Isis and her warriors had been able to distinguish in the ashes. 

Treachery. 

Isis wondered if the sands of Gomorrah had drunk Balthazar's blood, too. She let her heart sink into the dry desert chill and waited for the sunrise. The god-king and his priests would hear her plea this time. Proud Thebes would never fall to the storm that Mathayus had become.

Her eyelids fell shut under the weight of exhaustion, but Isis snapped awake again. In the faint glimmer of false dawn, a lone figure staggered along the dusty road some distance away. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stared until tears pricked. 

It was Nephthys, and she was alone.

***

They entered Thebes as an immigrant family. Cassandra wore a linen veil over her long hair; Arpid led the mule his "wife" was riding. 

They didn't make it far past the gates.

A shout from someone in the bustling streets, and suddenly the pair were surrounded by sword- and mace-wielding soldiers. Cassandra bit her lip and shared a frightened glance with Arpid.

"You are the sorceress Cassandra?" one of the men asked. "Consort to King Scorpion and mother of Sodom and Gomorrah?"

Cassandra blinked and felt herself go pale. "I..." Looking about, she caught sight of a familiar face. Isis was angry, angrier than the sorceress had ever seen the warrior queen. _And would I be any less angry if my husband had been murdered? If blood of my blood was betrayed?_ She crossed her arms protectively and nodded to the man. "I am."

"You'll come with us now, sorceress."

The sorceress looked back at Isis. "Am I to be executed?" The queen's sister appeared beside her, and the two women embraced tightly before melting into the Theban crowds. 

"It's Pharaoh's place to decide your fate, not mine."

***

The king wandered through the silent halls of his palace. Despite the morning bustle in the streets, the palace itself echoed voicelessly. The dead had been taken away after the plague of serpents had finally vanished. Mathayus fisted his hands and cursed. Cassandra--what had she been thinking?

"My lord..."

Mathayus turned around to find his only surviving scribe following him. The man looked pale, but after the previous night, the king couldn't blame him. "Yes?"

"There is someone... A man--"

"Get to the point, Nakhtmin."

"His men speak for him. He is very weak, they say you will know why. And they say he comes to throw himself on your mercy."

The king scowled. "I don't understand."

"He is..." Nakhtmin gestured helplessly. "My lord--he is wearing the Anubis bracelet."


	17. The Bracelet of Anubis

****

XVII. **The Bracelet of Anubis**

Mathayus stared down at the man lying on a pallet; nearby, a pair of bearers were trying to blend into the walls. _Thoth himself could learn a few things from Philos_, the king thought._ The old man's lack of belief in the spells he forged for Menes doesn't seem to have mattered._

A death mask returned the king's stare. The man's face had withered to a skull, but his eyes still held something of the guile that had been behind the death of Mathayus' son. Anakronos of Ethiopia, not strong enough to take in battle everything he desired for his own, had made a pact of deceit with an untried king. His greed, though, had done him in. Once almost true black, the stricken man's skin had faded to a sickly gray. The bulk of muscle had melted away, leaving flesh hanging limply from bones. 

__

I wonder, and Mathayus' heart clenched around the thought,_ what that prophecy would have to say about this. What Cassandra would say._

Helpless, hopeless--the plague of Nubia and Upper Egypt was now reduced to a drooling invalid. There was something deeply unfair, the king reflected, about the entire situation. 

"You had my son and heir murdered," Mathayus growled. "And now you expect mercy?"

The Ethiopian glared back mutely, too wasted even to speak.

Drawing his sword, the king went to one knee beside Anakronos. He rapped the blade against the stolen bracelet locked around his enemy's wrist; the jackal-headed scorpion chimed at the contact. "You like gold, don't you?" 

Anakronos closed his eyes and turned his face away. 

***

Narmer, the god and king of the city of Thebes, was in his gardens when Cassandra and Arpid were brought into his presence. Arpid knelt at once, but the sorceress saw nothing divine in Narmer; he was an old man with a stooped back, gray stubbling his shaven head.

Seated on a pair of gold-plated benches were Isis and Nephthys. Isis glared at Cassandra, but Nephthys refused to meet the sorceress' eyes.

"What am I doing here?" Cassandra asked curtly.

"Have I delayed you on some journey?" Narmer replied with the ghost of a smile. "Was Thebes not your destination?"

Cassandra glanced sharply at Arpid, who gave a quavering smile up at her, then stood. She looked at Isis and Nephthys, who'd also risen to their feet. Nephthys wore a venomous expression. "What? Since when--" Her voice trailed off; she backed up, but the guards were behind her. Glaring at the thief again, she rasped, "How long...?"

"My lady," Arpid pled, "please. Listen."

"How _long_?"

"Since that day in the throne room. When he..."

"When he took me," Cassandra finished. Her shoulders slumped; she suddenly felt much smaller.

"I am your loyal servant, my lady sorceress."

"Yes," she whispered. "I can see that. So loyal that you made an alliance with Mathayus' enemy."

Narmer motioned Isis and Nephthys to be seated again, then frowned. "The only enemy of the Scorpion King is himself."

Cassandra met his steady gaze, then nodded. "Very well."

Gesturing toward the Nubian sisters, the Theban king said, "Isis will return to her country to rule as my vassal. Nephthys will remain here, joining my household. It has been many years since my great wife died. I have missed the advice of a queen."

The sorceress blinked. "...Your vassal?"

"Nubia will be freed from her Ethiopian aggressors and put under the protection of the gods of the two lands." Narmer's enigmatic smile returned. "And you, my dear sorceress, will travel north with my daughter, where she will be wed to the prince of Ineb Hedj. Egypt is to be united against the threat of the Scorpion."

Nephthys jumped to her feet again. "No! You swore! You swore to me that she would be punished for her part in Balthazar's death!" Her face twisted in a hateful grimace. Her sister tried to restrain her, but Nephthys tore out of Isis' grasp and barreled across the courtyard toward Cassandra.

All the sorceress saw was a pale blur moving in front of her. The girl was slim and pale, with black hair under a light veil. She fetched a startled Nephthys several slaps across the face.

"Are you quite finished, Nephthys?" Narmer snapped. The Nubian warrior woman backed down, rubbing her cheek. Then the king smiled at the pale girl. "My daughter, the princess Ahawetsebwet."

Ahawetsebwet turned to greet Cassandra. Her face was like alabaster, dark eyes framed with kohl and malachite. "Gods," Cassandra breathed. "You look just like her..."

"Just like whom?" the princess asked.

"A... a vision." The sorceress shook her head. "It's not important."

Clearing his throat, Narmer continued. "As a wedding gift, the judgment of the sorceress' actions will be left to the prince--the future king of all Egypt."

"And when am I to be wed, Father?"

"In the winter, my dear, just before the inundation."

"Good," Ahawetsebwet agreed. "An auspicious time for a--"

"Winter?" Cassandra snapped unthinkingly. "But by then I'll be..." She trailed off.

King Narmer smiled his enigmatic smile again. "By then you will be showing, I believe, very much so. Oh, I have had wives enough," he laughed dryly, "and many sons and daughters. I knew your condition as soon as I saw you." 

"Son of a motherless goat," Arpid swore softly, glancing back and forth between Narmer and Cassandra. 

"You see, Nephthys," Narmer said, "she will be justly and rightly judged for her actions."

But by Nephthys' seething expression, she didn't see. Instead she slumped against her sister, who, whispering softly, led her to her feet and out of the garden. Cassandra stared after them, her mind in a whirl.

***

Mathayus leaned down close to Anakronos, close enough that he could smell the Ethiopian's rotting breath. "You want to live?"

Anakronos wheezed something that could have been yes.

"I could help you. Despite everything you've done to me, I could help you." Mathayus leaned closer still, whispering in the dying man's ear. "Do you swear by all your gods to do as I say?"

The wheezing grew more pronounced. One of the bearers said in a terrified squeak, "He--he agrees, lord, he agrees!"

Standing up again, Mathayus called for his scribe. Nakhtmin trotted in with his tools--papyrus sheets, writing stone, ink, and stylus--and took a seat on the floor, crosslegged. 

The king began to pace. "Anakronos agrees to these terms: His lands in Ethiopia, Kush, and the Sudan now belong to the banner of the Scorpion. They will henceforth provide a yearly tribute, enforced by my armies if needed. All able men old enough to swing a sword will do so in my service for a span of no less than ten years. Anakronos himself," and here Mathayus stared down at the Ethiopian, "agrees to submit himself to the only recourse that could possibly save his life."

He waited long enough for Nakhtmin to complete the document. Then, with his thumb twitching repeatedly over the blade of his scimitar, Mathayus stopped mid-pace, turned toward Anakronos, and swung. Finally Anakronos cried out, as his lower arm--bracelet still attached--spun wildly away across the floor. The two terrified bearers huddled closer against the wall, their eyes following the gruesome thing as it slid to a stop. 

The Anubis bracelet snapped open.

"Now we see," Mathayus said, wiping his blade on his belt sash before seating himself on his throne.

"My lord?" Nakhtmin quavered. "See... what?"

Anakronos writhed in silent pain as the pool of blood from his severed arm steadily widened.

"Whether removing the bracelet will save his life."


	18. This Cold Rain

****

XVIII. **This Cold Rain**

Cold rain.

It sheeted from the sky and hissed into the river, water meeting water with claws and teeth bared. The physician had instructed Cassandra to stay indoors during the rains, but there was not much room in the small cabin on the royal barge. Besides, the rain suited her mood.

Her engorged belly quivered visibly as fists and feet pummeled inside, as though protesting the rain. _I hate you_, she thought at the tiny being inside. Her clothes and hair were plastered to her skin. 

Peasants lined the banks of the river, eager to catch a glimpse of their future queen, even if it meant standing exposed to the winter rain. Men, women, and children waved and smiled, bowed and sang hymns. Cassandra stared back, feeling hollow despite the life growing inside her. The faces blurred one into another until there were no faces left, only strange, clay-formed mockeries of human beings.

How many of these had fled Memnon's campaign of terror? How many more had followed after Mathayus began to go mad?

"Those little children and their mothers should not be out in this cold rain," Ahawetsebwet said beside her. Cassandra prickled at the sweet-voiced rebuke.

"And the king's great wife should?"

One perfect black eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly. "I am not his wife yet."

"I'll go inside if you will, my lady." How strange that felt, to call someone else 'my lady,' instead of being called that herself. Cassandra thought she would be used to it very soon.

"It rains so rarely in Egypt. Let us enjoy it while it lasts, sister."

__

I will never_ be your sister_. Another kick punctuated that savage thought. 

The two women--one no longer a king's consort, the other soon to be--waited out the remainder of the downpour as the Nile's current bore the barge inexorably north. At sunset, the rain clouds finally melted away. The golden disk slid down into the mouth of the horizon; the sky turned a deep crimson, staining the river with its reflection.

__

Blood in the water. Only now that the rain had stopped did Cassandra's wet-streaked skin break out in chills. _Blood from the sky._

Blinking rapidly, the sorceress swallowed her echoed premonition. "What do you think Ineb-Hedj will be like?"

A smile bloomed on Ahawetsebwet's face. "Once the prince and I are wed and he wears the Red and White Crowns of the two lands, the name of the city will be changed in his honor. I am told his mortuary temple is already quite grand, though of course unfinished."

"He will need it soon." The princess stared at her, and Cassandra realized she had spoken aloud. "I--"

"The son of Horus will not, I think, have need of a sorceress' visions. But do not fear for your future. I will ensure you a place in his household. Perhaps you will even serve as my wet nurse."

Cassandra retreated to her cabin, and knew it for a retreat--knew as well that Ahawetsebwet would see it, too. Curling up on the bed, she wrapped herself in a thick blanket and wished desperately for Mathayus. 

The last thing she wanted to do was let the princess see her tears, so she faced the wall and was very carefully quiet as the bedding beneath her grew wet with her sorrow. After a while, she slept.

Waking early in the morning, Cassandra found herself suddenly anxious for no reason she could pin down. She listened with more than her ears, looked with more than her eyes, but no arcane knowledge made itself apparent. Finally she rose, dressed, and left the questionable comfort of her cabin, only to discover Ahawetsebwet already posted at the prow.

"Look," the princess whispered as Cassandra walked up beside her.

The curling mist the barge slipped through smothered noise as well as sight; an ibis ghosted into view, only to take flight silently. Cassandra could feel, but not hear, the reeds slapping against the keel through the hush.

Then, as though responding to her thoughts, the royal barge cleared the blanketing fog. The chirping of both birds and frogs seeped through the evaporating silence; soon, Cassandra could even hear voices singing a rhythmic chant common to laborers.

They rounded a slow bend in the great river. The reeds began to clear away, revealing a looming vision of golden pillars, artisans singing as they painted hieroglyphic designs on them, and a horde of women and children waiting to shower them with flowers and gold.

__

Ineb-Hedj has arrived, Cassandra thought, mystified as to why she'd thought something so strange.

Ahawetsebwet, of course, went ashore first, after the boatmen had secured the barge to the pier. The children surrounded her, the women placing golden links and flowered pectorals around her neck. Cassandra wondered how many of the women were the prince's lesser wives, how many of the children were his own, or merely charming decoration.

Then she saw him, and she knew that none of the children could be his; they were all too old for this boy--young man--this prince who could not possibly be here.

Cassandra finally tore her eyes away from the long, ragged scar on his chest. They lit briefly on Ahawetsebwet as she took the prince's hand in her own and smiled at him, then they came to rest on the prince's hollow, sun-darkened face.

There was little of the mischief she remembered left in his eyes.

"Menes?"

"Lady mother."

__

She saw Menes lying in a pool of his own blood, a look of shock etched on his boyishly handsome face. She saw him seated on a throne, a young woman of striking beauty at his side.

Cassandra suddenly found sitting herself on the ground, her legs useless beneath her. The heat of the sun bore down on her head and shoulders; one of the smaller children began crying. "But..." she murmured. "Why didn't you come home?" 

Menes frowned down at the sorceress. "Because I was dead."

The winter rain began again then, as cold as it had been for the entirety of the journey.


	19. Beyond the Good Green

****

XIX. **Beyond the Good Green**

Cassandra woke with a start. Something wasn't right.

She heaved herself to a sitting position, panting as she rearranged her legs around her belly. The air seemed closer, heavy and moist from the nearby river; a sense of apprehension hung in the air like the cloying scent of the lotus flowers decorating her tiny room. 

Then a breeze sighed in through the window, and everything began all at once.

The band of pressure wrapping about her womb matched the one of terror that gripped Cassandra's throat as the bedding became abruptly awash with sweet-smelling fluid. She managed to drag herself out of the bed, but her legs didn't want to work. Sobbing in pain and fear, she just barely caught herself against the wall before collapsing.

__

Help, she thought desperately. _This isn't how it was supposed to happen._

Then the door slammed open and Ahawetsebwet stumbled in, an alabaster lamp burning in one hand. "What is--"

"It's here," Cassandra whispered, grimacing. "It's coming."

"I'll call for the mdiwife!" 

But Cassandra caught the other woman's hand and clung to it. "No!" she sobbed. "Don't... don't leave. Don't leave me alone!"

Dancing above the lamp oil, the yellow flame illuminated Ahawetsebwet's face as the mask of princess faded, revealing a woman caught up in Cassandra's distress. Her perfect brow wrinkled in worry, she wrapped one slender arm about Cassandra's shoulders. "Can you walk?"

__

My body is no longer my own. How can she expect me to walk? Gritting her teeth against a groan, Cassandra shook her head. _This isn't how it's supposed to go!_ her mind wailed again. 

Finally, Ahawetsebwet pulled away and disappeared, but it wasn't long before she was back with the palace midwife. 

The room contracted until there was nothing left but the pain; the pain expanded to encompass the whole world. _I should never have left him. He should have been here!_ Magnified by agony, Cassandra's longing took almost physical shape. Then another mental voice--an unborn voice--joined her own, not understanding, but pulled into a link with its mother's mind. 

__

Mathayus! 

The midwife's chanted prayers to Isis and Hathor faltered. Ahawetsebwet moaned, hiding her face in her hands like a frightened child. Somewhere in the desert, beyond the good green of Nile farmland, a pack of jackals took up the call, their eerie voices rising and dipping to the lonely pulse. The river held its breath. 

Ahawetsebwet's strangled shriek brought Cassandra out of her half-trance to see thousands of small, dark shapes crawling through the window, through the door, stopping in a teeming circle around the three women. "He is here," Cassandra whispered to herself. A rush of arriving power seethed through the room; a long moment later, there was a tiny, thin wail. The sorceress' pain all but vanished in sudden contentment.

Cassandra smiled as the midwife, sweating and trembling, placed the infant on her breast. It was a boy. "Mathayus is here," Cassandra murmured to the baby. "He's with us, after all."

Exchanging a fearful look with Ahawetsebwet, the midwife made a warding gesture.

Mother and child, both bloody and exhausted, fell asleep. Only the midwife and the princess were left to watch as the swarm of scorpions slowly melted back into the night.

***

"I have had many fathers."

Menes escorted Cassandra through the narrow passages of the temple palace, from her own rooms to the king of all Egypt's throne room. _The king of _almost_ all Egypt_, some part of Cassandra's mind muttered. Mathayus still held a significant area of Upper Egypt, though his borders were being nibbled away almost daily, his former son had said.

"My first father left me to die on the streets of Gomorrah," the young pharaoh continued. "My second father rescued me from that life, gave me hope, taught me not to fear love." Their paired footsteps echoed hollowly. "My third father was my death. But my fourth--my fourth father was Horus himself, who had pity on me." 

Cassandra blinked. 

__

The palace melted around her. She was lying on cold earth; she could hear the river singing softly to itself not far away. But a great weight was pressing on her chest--and she was no longer Cassandra. 

Menes gazed up as he was drawn into the river of the gods. He found himself before many magnificent gates, golden and painted with magical hieroglyphics. One after another, the gates bowed before him, until he passed into a bright hall.

An assembly of gods questioned him closely, but he could not answer. His mouth would not open. Then he came before great scales. A god with a jackal's head--Anubis--held a small urn in his hands. My heart_, Menes thought, but without fear. Instead of placing it on the scales, though, the god of death passed the heart vessel to a tall, linen-wrapped figure behind him._

Justice!_ a falcon cried, and Osiris smiled at his son. _

Horus took the urn from his father and passed it into Menes' hands. Menes felt a raptor's kiss on his brow, and his heart began to beat again. 

The baby stirred in Cassandra's arms, and Menes paused for a long moment. "May I hold him?" he asked. Menes' face lit as tiny hands waved erratically. "You will have many fathers too, little one." Then, glancing at Cassandra: "Come."

Entering the throne room, Cassandra felt a light breeze whisper past, though there were no windows. But it was only Ahawetsebwet, entering behind them. She smiled benignly at Cassandra, then indulgently down at the baby.

"Here, take him," Menes said to his bride, and passed the precious bundle over.

Ahawetsebwet bared one breast. The baby instinctively suckled until, finding no milk, he wailed.

"Give him back to me!" Cassandra snapped. The queen's smile didn't falter as she pressed the baby back into Menes' waiting arms. 

Menes kissed the tiny forehead, then placed a small golden amulet in the grasping hands. "Your name is Djer, my son. You have two fathers now, and someday you will have a third. When I am gone," he murmured, "you will be the next Son of Horus."

"Give him back," Cassandra insisted again. "He's hungry. I must feed him." Djer's wails grew strident as he caught the distress in his mother's voice. The amulet fell into the cloth swaddling. As Menes passed the baby back to the sorceress, she saw that the amulet was the same golden scorpion necklace as Mathayus had given Menes a lifetime ago. 

Quieting, Djer nursed contentedly. _You have only one father, son of mine._

His eyes softening, Menes leaned close to Cassandra's ear. "Be at peace, lady mother. The sons of Mathayus will rule over all Egypt."


	20. I Stand Alone

****

XX. I Stand Alone 

His people had once called him King Mathayus, speaking his name with pride and pleasure, and not a little awe. But now that the necropolis of Naqada was built, now that the king turned his eye to vengeance, they never used his name, calling him only the Scorpion King--or worse, the Mad King.

Mad King Mathayus. But how mad would he be when Thebes fell? The gods themselves, who had chosen Thebes as their home city, would be forced to bow before their conqueror, a mere Akkadian. The last of his people. Sometimes when he visited Naqada, Mathayus thought he caught a glimpse of his long-dead brother, teaching a ghostly Thomid to ride and shoot and the proper way to handle a blade. 

Everything that Mathayus had wanted to teach his own son.

He'd received a letter from King Narmer of Thebes not two months ago notifying him of the imminent marriage of his daughter, the princess Ahawetsebwet, to the new king at Ineb-Hedj. Menes. Only now the capital of Lower Egypt was Memphis, the name changed in the pharaoh's honor, and Menes wore the crowns of both north and south. 

Mathayus gave thanks every day that Menes lived. And swore every night that he would bring him home, back to his father's side--even if it meant overrunning every city in Egypt, from Thebes to Memphis. He _would_ have his son back.

***

Chanting. Incense. Dry, cracked air.

The sanctuary of the temple of Set was dim, the floors splintered and sand-strewn. The walls showed a riot of carvings. Here, an old man, beard bristling, examining Anubis' scales of justice through a pair of ridiculous frog-eyed lenses; there, a Nubian giant, sword in hand, grinding the monster Ammut into the earth; farther on, the old northern King Djer nursing a kidnapped prince back to health. 

Spells and stories, prayers and histories. Memnon. Pheron. Mathayus. And everywhere, everywhere, the stylized figure of a familiar horse thief, always in the background.

Cassandra walked softly, feeling as though the hieroglyphic figures carved into the walls were watching. Arpid greeted her with a shaky smile.

"You could have stayed in Thebes," Cassandra said. She winced as her voice echoed.

"Do you really think there are no priests of Set, even in the city of Amun?" The air was heavy with the chanting of prayers and spells, though only two other priests were in the sanctuary. "Besides, this is my home temple, where I was raised and trained. It is right that I should--" 

Arpid gave the two men waiting silently by a darkened doorway a nervous look, before turning Cassandra away from their cruel gaze. "You don't know how fierce the war among the gods is. How convoluted." His voice was a murmur, his lips barely moving. "The double crosses, the triple crosses."

Cassandra frowned, not understanding.

"I have been in this from the beginning. You think I was only a horse thief?" 

"Pheron's death?" Cassandra asked. "Memnon's fall? The murder of Mathayus' brother?" 

Arpid nodded, his expression bitter. "All of it Set's doing."

"And Menes?"

"What could be better than the fall of kings?" the thief hissed. "Except when it leads to the rise of justice." His grimace twisted into a hard smile. "And now the two lands will be united for the first time since the murder of Osiris. You see? I deceived the god of deception. Good trick, no?" His chuckle held an edge of hysteria.

Abrupt cold gripped Cassandra's throat. "Arpid. What are you doing?"

"For once in my life, sorceress, I'm doing something _honest_." With a nod, he turned and began walking toward the two waiting priests.

"Arpid!"

He came back then and embraced her, his voice warm against her ear. "Watch for Set's return! He'll be wearing the jackal's head."

"No..."

But Arpid turned again and gave himself over to the two priests. Seizing him by the arms, they pulled him into the darkened room. There was a choked cry, and the sound of something wet hitting the stone floor. 

The chanting died away. Cassandra fled.

***

Isis had refused Narmer's deal. She would never slink off home when there was a war to be fought. 

The old man had presented her with a palette showing--of all the ludicrous things--himself victorious over the Two Lands. But Isis threw the palette to the ground, shattering it. She spat at Narmer's feet, took up her own sword, and joined the Theban army waiting for the mad king's attack.

Mathayus' army was enormous, thousands strong. Isis smiled, and the sweating foot soldier beside her gave her a wary look. Her predatory grin widened. "Today will be a good day."

And it was. 

***

Menes' harsh coughing tore through the air of his chambers. Ahawetsebwet ministered to him, rubbing herb-laden oils into his scarred chest. The young queen's lovely face was marred with perpetual worry.

Trying unsuccessfully to ignore the hollow cheeks, the chest that seemed to have caved in, Cassandra knew the young king would not last much longer. Djer was only just beginning to learn to talk, not nearly old enough to take the throne. She prayed that Menes would last a little longer. Just a little longer.

He smiled at her when she entered. "I won't rule much longer," he said, as if reading her thoughts. "I never did completely heal from the wound."

Cassandra nodded. Then: "Djer has had a vision."

"Isn't it a little early for that?"

"I don't know. Memnon had my family killed and me taken before I could learn everything I should have." She looked at her hands and found them to be clenched around Djer's favorite little blanket. "I shared his vision," she continued. "Mathayus and his army have been defeated at Thebes. The survivors, including Mathayus himself, were driven into the desert."

"I've already received word of this."

"But it's not the end," Cassandra insisted, her voice becoming strident. "Mathayus will return, and there will be--"

Menes held up his hand, stopping her. "Lady mother. Remember whose son I am." He smiled, and his illness seemed to vanish for a moment. 

"I make my own destiny."

__

End. 


	21. End Notes and Bibliography

****

Notes 

I got _Scorpion King_ on DVD and watched it, not really knowing what to expect. The Rock? Who was he?--other than one of those ridiculous professional wrestlers. And the trailers made it look like nothing more than a ninety-minute episode of _Hercules_ or _Xena_. But I sat down and watched it anyway, and... Wow. Just, wow. Who is that Rock guy? A damn fine specimen of the male species, if you ask me.

And then I watched _The Mummy Returns_, wanting nothing more than to get a little more of the Rock. Instead, I got "The Valley of the Dead." How on earth could that hero-fellow from _Scorpion King_ have turned into the madman of the _Mummy Returns_ prologue? The question instantly captivated me, and I went straight from watching Brendan Fraser killing off the Scorpion King monster, to the computer to write chapter one of Valley.

The actual plot didn't coalesce until somewhere around chapter five. I needed a name for the boy, since the credits had just called Tutu Sweeney's character "Street Urchin." Looking up a list of first dynasty kings gave me the name Menes, and plopped a ready-made ending into my lap. That was the first occurrence of synchronicity, but not the last. Another quirky convenience was the location of Esna and Edfu, "twin cities" in Egypt that suited my purposes perfectly; "Sodom" even had a temple to Horus, who would involve himself again later in the story.

Enter Pinky, my plot goddess. She helped me work out the knots in the tangled web I'd woven, and she beta read several chapters that came out godawful at first. Thanks, Pinky. Any leftover confusion (or godawfulness, for that matter) is entirely my fault.

And then I met ArtemisAristoboule, who has actually gone on archaeological digs and actually has an extensive library concerning Egyptology. Without her, I would have still been doing research. Artemis is a one-woman encyclopedia. Thanks, Artemis. I'm sure there are mistakes galore in the historical details of Valley, but they're all mine.

Melissa pointed out the need for a name for Mathayus' necropolis. Thanks, Mel. Fate provided me with the name of Naqada, which is an actual necropolis and has connections with both the historical King Scorpion and the god Set. After I found that, things kept eerily falling into place--Narmer, Djer, Set's deceptions, and even the Narmer Palette mentioned in the final chapter. The framework seemed to have been there all along, just waiting for someone to fit the characters in. I mentioned eeriness, didn't I?

Then again, Egypt has always been connected to the mysterious and magical.

There's a few easter eggs in Valley, for those interested in such things. I got the name Anakronos from "anachronism," which _Scorpion King_ is full of. (Gunpowder, crossbows, and chainmail, anyone?) Drove Artemis nuts, but I didn't mind. The name of the Ethiopian envoy, Selasser, comes from Haile Selassie, a historical Ethiopian king. The name of Wekil, the ill-fated red guard, comes from Arabic and means "lieutenant," I think. And as far as I can figure, Ahawetsebwet means, basically, "Star Wars." Couldn't resist making that one up. 

The golden bracelet with the jackal-headed scorpion is, of course, the bracelet from _Mummy Returns_ that guides the re-resurrected Imhotep to the Scorpion King's lair. Why's it show the way there? Because it was made to show Menes the way home to his father, no matter where he was. All together, now: "Awwwwwwwww..." The camel "humphing" at Mathayus in chapter fourteen is a reference to Rudyard Kipling's "How the Camel Got His Hump." (By humphing, that's how!)

Philos makes a wink-wink, nudge-nudge reference to the "real" oracle Cassandra, whom Greek legend describes as perpetually disbelieved and ignored. Aesop's fable about the fox and the scorpion is in there too, and is written into part of the plot. Balthazar's death had to happen for plot purposes, but (in another of those weird/handy coincidences) links up with Osiris' death: both were married to women named Isis, and both were killed by brothers (Set was Osiris' brother, and Mathayus, Balthazar's brother-in-arms). Set's involvement woven into the plot sweetened the whole deal. 

And finally, the title of chapter twenty, "I Stand Alone," is the title of the song written for the movie by Godsmack.

****

Bibliography 

****

Books 

__

Egyptian Magic, by E.A. Wallis Budge

__

The Dwellers on the Nile, by E.A. Wallis Budge

__

Osiris, by E.A. Wallis Budge

__

Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt, by Mary Bennet

__

Pharaohs and Kings, by David M. Rohl

__

Fascinating Hieroglyphics, by Christian Jacq

__

The Atlas of Early Man, by Jacquetta Hawkes 

****

Websites 

http://www.kenseamedia.com/august/month.htm

http://www.touregypt.net/

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/anubis.htm

http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/13_2%20Birth%20Control%20in%20Antiquity.htm

http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/ta/tad.html

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/weapons/

http://www.jimloy.com/egypt/egypt.htm


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